Solar study

chad_huleatt

I'm putting up a shade sail at a local daycare, and want to make sure I get it oriented correctly to optimise the shade. In Solidworks I would use the environment rendering to simulate the sun/ shade at different times of day/ months of the year. Anyway to do that in Onshape?

steve_shubin

A bit more on the sun study

OK first thing — do all your modeling for this sun study in Onshape. It is the superior modeler. It’s got the most intuitive interface — the smoothest working interface

So I got all parts of my export out of Onshape and then into form Z at the proper scale

In Onshape, I set the default units for the document to foot.

When I did the STL export out of Onshape, I found that I had to set it to inches. Trying to do an STL export out of Onshape with the export units set to foot, would not work. So use inches

You can select multiple parts in the modeling window while in Onshape and then bring up the contextual menu to do an export. And you could export all of those items in one file

Now when I imported into formZ, I set the units to inches. And that worked out great because everything came in at the proper size

So export out of Onshape

Import into formZ

Assign materials to the objects.

Set up a distant light

And bring up the sun position palette

If by chance you do have to move things while you are in form Z, and you have the move tool selected, well make sure it’s set to where you’re only going to be moving and not making a copy as you are moving the part

If you need to do a vertical move along the Z, tap the command key and that’ll lock it into moving along the z-axis only. Then tap command when you’re ready to get out of that Z restriction

To cast shadows you’re going to have to set it to Shaded Full Display

In the Display Options palette for Shaded Full Display, make sure shadows is checked. And where it says shadow map size, set it to massive and this will avoid any kind of stairstep along the edges of your shadows

Somehow there were a few duplicates of parts of the framework for the canopy or shade. Not sure if it happened on export or if I set something wrong in formZ. But through the object pallet you can adjust the visibility of each part. And you’d be able to figure out what is a duplicate. And from that object pallet you can bring up a contextual menu and delete the duplicate parts

john_mcclary

You won't have access to the bulit in rendering tools in Onshape unless you have a Pro/Enterprise account.

There are other rendering tools on the app store with free trials I believe.
Otherwise, export to blender.

You can also use a raytracer featurescript I believe??
FeatureScript Ray Tracer | Ray Tracer Instructions.pdf (onshape.com)

steve_shubin

@chad_huleatt

If you are not able to find a rendering program within the Onshape App Store that will do a sun study, then here is a way

Now I used formZ Pro, but their documentation says that you can do sun studies with their free version

http://www.formz.com/fzsite1219/products/formz/formz_free.html

I used @Jason_S first document to make a SHADE SAIL that was 15’ square

Geez, talk about an easy way to model that thing !!

It's no wonder why Onshape is my favorite app

OK, so then I exported the shade only as an STL

The free version of formZ only has a few different file formats to work with - STL  SKP  KMZ  and their native format

I then imported the STL into formZ

I did have to use the uniform scale tool to scale it up to the 15’ dimension

It was just a matter of using the measure tool to see what size it came in at, and then applying a single factor

I then moved it up to 8’ off of the ground

Made a block representing a 10’ high structure (small building)

Made a flat rectangle to represent the ground in order to see where the shadows will be

Applied materials to the 3 different objects

Created a distant light

Used the Sun Position palette to dial in a location and time of day

steve_shubin

A bit more on the sun study

OK first thing — do all your modeling for this sun study in Onshape. It is the superior modeler. It’s got the most intuitive interface — the smoothest working interface

So I got all parts of my export out of Onshape and then into form Z at the proper scale

In Onshape, I set the default units for the document to foot.

When I did the STL export out of Onshape, I found that I had to set it to inches. Trying to do an STL export out of Onshape with the export units set to foot, would not work. So use inches

You can select multiple parts in the modeling window while in Onshape and then bring up the contextual menu to do an export. And you could export all of those items in one file

Now when I imported into formZ, I set the units to inches. And that worked out great because everything came in at the proper size

So export out of Onshape

Import into formZ

Assign materials to the objects.

Set up a distant light

And bring up the sun position palette

If by chance you do have to move things while you are in form Z, and you have the move tool selected, well make sure it’s set to where you’re only going to be moving and not making a copy as you are moving the part

If you need to do a vertical move along the Z, tap the command key and that’ll lock it into moving along the z-axis only. Then tap command when you’re ready to get out of that Z restriction

To cast shadows you’re going to have to set it to Shaded Full Display

In the Display Options palette for Shaded Full Display, make sure shadows is checked. And where it says shadow map size, set it to massive and this will avoid any kind of stairstep along the edges of your shadows

Somehow there were a few duplicates of parts of the framework for the canopy or shade. Not sure if it happened on export or if I set something wrong in formZ. But through the object pallet you can adjust the visibility of each part. And you’d be able to figure out what is a duplicate. And from that object pallet you can bring up a contextual menu and delete the duplicate parts

MichaelPascoe

That's incredible @steve_shubin! I didn't know this was possible.

S1mon

FWIW, Rhino also has a Sun command which will light a model with the sun based on time of year and location.

chad_huleatt

@steve_shubin that rocks, thanks for all the help! Shade sail has arrived, will install posts this week and sail next week.

steve_shubin

@MichaelPascoe
@chad_huleatt

well I’m really glad to hear you guys liked hearing about this