Topic Title

I have been trying to use Sunshader, yes me, to get up a little job to Youtube.

Sunshader has proved itself to be ALMOST useful. The shortcomings are so bleeding obvious that I'm probably not the first to complain.

1. I'm sick of Sunshader's insistence on activating its own groundplane. I'm a DATACAD user for chrissakes and, unsurpisingly, I make my own, and the chances of the generated groundplane being useful to anybody is slim indeed, though perhaps there is somebody who specialises in airport control towers.

2. The frequency list needs changing. Five minutes would be nice. It would make for longer/smoother movies. And anybody using six hours is surely not serious about shadows.

3. There needs to be a properly defined time window. The sunrise to sunset checkbox is absurd and clearly set up by some dumb nerd in a sealed room who has no idea about the profession. I can get a close enough result for 0900 to 1500 by setting the minimum altitude to 19 degrees, but that is just good luck from good geography. Good management had nothing to do with it, and most users will not have that luck.

4. It would be really good if the date, time, alt and az display were in larger and bolder text. This would make them eminently more readable in movies.

Sunshader is not a replacement for dhShadow when it comes down to the serious business of technical documentation of solar matters down here in Godzone, where the sun shines bright. But it has great potential to do the stuff that dhShadow cannot do. And it is nearly there....

I have been trying to use Sunshader, yes me, to get up a little job to Youtube.

Sunshader has proved itself to be ALMOST useful. The shortcomings are so bleeding obvious that I'm probably not the first to complain.

1. I'm sick of Sunshader's insistence on activating its own groundplane. I'm a DATACAD user for chrissakes and, unsurpisingly, I make my own, and the chances of the generated groundplane being useful to anybody is slim indeed, though perhaps there is somebody who specialises in airport control towers.

2. The frequency list needs changing. Five minutes would be nice. It would make for longer/smoother movies. And anybody using six hours is surely not serious about shadows.

3. There needs to be a properly defined time window. The sunrise to sunset checkbox is absurd and clearly set up by some dumb nerd in a sealed room who has no idea about the profession. I can get a close enough result for 0900 to 1500 by setting the minimum altitude to 19 degrees, but that is just good luck from good geography. Good management had nothing to do with it, and most users will not have that luck.

4. It would be really good if the date, time, alt and az display were in larger and bolder text. This would make them eminently more readable in movies.

Sunshader is not a replacement for dhShadow when it comes down to the serious business of technical documentation of solar matters down here in Godzone, where the sun shines bright. But it has great potential to do the stuff that dhShadow cannot do. And it is nearly there....

Hi Nick,

Good to know that you found Sun Shader 'almost' useful. It is still some progress. That so called 'dumb nerd in a sealed room' you are talking about would be me and you are right I am not an architect and I don't have any experience as an architect that is why we rely on feedback from Beta testing from those who are actually in the profession to direct us in the right direction. Your feedback is certainly helpful in making Sun Shader better. I will forward your wish list to our technical support and management to decide what can be incorporated and what not.

Thank you!

Hello Prixit (...I won't use your assumed alias ),

I have to agree with Nick on not having the ground plane and text readout automatically turn on each time shadows are turned on. Personally, I also believe a white (neutral) background color should be the default. Ideally, having Sunshader remember ALL the current settings on exit would be the best (and these could perhaps write to a default file to be used each time a new file is loaded?). I use Sunshader more for pseudo/upfront sketch presentation than real sunshading given I like the sketchy quality it creates and it produces a better look than O2C which is often pale in comparison.

Another wishlist to consider, is a 'Lock rotation' - with a large model when moving the mouse to change the view, the model jumps around so that one second I'm looking up at the building, then it's off to the side, then I'm under the building.....(I've 16GB ram too). I used trueSpace some years back and you could lock the rotation angle in that program so maybe something similar could be adapted to Sunshader? If I were using the DataCAD rotate left, right, up, down etc. and then picked 'Lock' on say rotate left, then I could use the mouse and even if I moved it slightly up/down when moving the mouse, the model would be locked into a 'horizontal-left rotation' without moving out of alignment...or somewhere off into space!

The use of the various screen images on loading is a good idea (someone's been busy)....I think this sort of showcase on what DataCAD can do should also be added to the installation program....

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the feedback! I will try to accommodate wishlist from you and Nick as much as I can in upcoming update.

Best,

No worries! Thanks.

Another wishlist to consider, is a 'Lock rotation'

I may be misunderstanding what your shooting for Mark, but have you tried the Pan/Zoom/Rotate tool or the rotate toolbar for this?

Hi Josh,

I use both the mouse to rotate the building and the icons (curved arrows) across the top right of the menu:

15_020113a.jpg (115.69 KiB) Viewed 14031 times

The curved arrows do what I was asking and 'lock' the alignment of the rotation but only rotate by a set increment each click (even if you keep the mouse on the arrow) - it's very slow. When using the mouse I can get a quicker swing/rotation but I'm not able to keep it steady enough to maintain the rotation in the horizontal or vertical rotation (maybe I'm getting old or have had too much scotch!). What would be nice is to use the mouse (quick) but have the rotation fixed in a set rotation so I don't end up looking down the building when I wanted to look up at it.....I also think the size/complexity of the model makes it slower to move it around the screen.

Gotcha. Maybe some hot keys like holding Ctrl would only rotate around X, Alt would only rotate arount Y, and Ctrl+Alt would rotate around Z? Don't have DC here and my memory is fuzzy (couldn't be the moonshine) to see if these keys are being use already for something else.

...sounds good to me!

Would be nice if the sun shader remembered it's state when it's closed. If maximized when closed, re-open maximized. If closed un-maxmized, open at the last location & size. When I close the sunshader while it's maximized, and then reopen it, it is not maximized but is stretched just beyond my monitors limits, which is a bit weird.

yep - I get this too; the edge of the SS window stretches onto the second monitor.

I've just realised I get that too. It goes in the left monitor by about 2mm. I have seen it before but I thought it was me and never bothered about it.

DIXIT NOTE this is the lowest priority item.........