Jnbforme Posted August 5, 2009 Posted August 5, 2009 Hi All, I've been working on a large urban design, I've created all the buildings as space objects thinking I'd like to eventually have them cast a shadow on the ground plane, however I find that since I am in plan or "top" view autocad flattens the drawing and that I can only see the shadows in isometric views... So in short i would like to find out how to see cast shadows in plan view (without rendering). Please shed some light Ron Quote
f700es Posted August 5, 2009 Posted August 5, 2009 I know I sound like a scratched CD at times but this is where I would use SketchUp. Bring your dwg into SU and set your sun setting for your proposed location. Set to top view and change the camera to parallel projection and this should do it. Save the image to PDF or jpeg and you should be able to use in a presentation/proposal. Good luck. Quote
Jnbforme Posted August 5, 2009 Author Posted August 5, 2009 thanks 700, Sketchup is great, no need to preech to the quier, however in this particular project i need to show alot of 2d info aswell all layered in autocad, so i must stay within the software otherwise i'm looking at some serious photoshop monkeying about... any one else got an idea? I just want my 3d objects to have shadows in plan view in autocad, revit can do it why can't autocad? Quote
f700es Posted August 5, 2009 Posted August 5, 2009 Well you can export your 2D shadow image as a jpeg and then bring that back into AutoCAD and then scale up to match what you need and then add your 2D detail, either in model or papersapce.Not a perfect solution but maybe good enough to get by in a pinch. Good luck Sean Quote
Jnbforme Posted August 5, 2009 Author Posted August 5, 2009 I found a bad way to do it, simply rotate my view about 0.01% so that it's now shaded and the isometry is hardly visible, shadows look fine and all my details in the background looks great, BUT WHY! WHY does a piece of "software" that can trace shadows not let you do it in top view whyyy. I refuse to believe this is true i say there is a way, there must be a way. there has to be away Quote
f700es Posted August 5, 2009 Posted August 5, 2009 Yeah I guess they did not figure on a flat parallel shaded view ever being wanted. Maybe worth a jump to the AutoDesk forums and see if any one there has a way. Quote
Jnbforme Posted August 5, 2009 Author Posted August 5, 2009 Thanks 700 i'll post there, if it does any good I'll post a link here... Quote
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