Generating Shadow Profiles

You can create shadow profiles for a building. Shadow Profiles show the building shadow profiles between specified start and end times at a specified interval throughout the day.

Before you begin:
  1. From the Site Planning section of the action bar, geolocate the building or site product. Alternatively, open an OSM map which automatically includes the geolocation.
  2. Create or insert a building that includes the full mass height and the roof.
  3. To generate shadow profiles on a terrain:
    1. Activate the 3DSpace that contains the terrain.
    2. Select the terrain. To convert the terrain to a polyhedral body, in the context menu, click Enable for Engineering 3D Design. The system creates a surface body from the terrain.
See Also
Importing an OSM File
  1. From the Site Planning section of the action bar, click Shadow Profiles .
  2. In the Shadow Profiles dialog box, under Date and Time:
    1. To change the date, click the calendar and select the date.
      For example, to show the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere for 2017, select March 20, 2017 and for the Southern Hemisphere, select September 23, 2017.
    2. From Time Zone, select the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) without accounting for Daylight Savings Time.
      For example, for Waltham, Massachusetts, select UTC -05:00.
    3. If the selected date is during Daylight Savings Time, select the Daylight savings check box.
      The dialog box displays Sunrise time and Sunset time for the Date and Time selections.

    The system creates a single set of shadow profiles for a given date. If you choose the same date as a previously created set of shadow profiles, the system displays a warning message to confirm if you want to overwrite the previous shadow profile set. If you cancel the overwrite command, the previous shadow profile set is retained. If you choose a new date, the system creates a new set of shadow profiles.

  3. In the Shadow Profiles dialog box, under Shadow Profiles:
    1. Enter the Start time Hours and Minutes of shadow profiles.
    2. Enter the End time Hours and Minutes of shadow profiles.
    3. Enter in Interval Hours and Minutes, the frequency that you want the system to generate shadow profiles between the start and end time.
  4. From Color, select the color of the shadow profiles.
  5. To add text labels for the shadow profiles, select Generate labels. The text label is attached to a shadow profile and indicates the time of day for which the profile is drawn.
  6. To generate profiles on other planes, building faces, planar surfaces, nonplanar surfaces, or terrains:
    1. In the Shadow Profiles dialog box, under Shadow Profiles, click the Generate profiles on input box. The value is set to xy plane by default.
    2. From the 3D area or the tree, select a plane, building face, planar surface, or nonplanar surface.

      Important: To generate a profile on a terrain, select the polyhedral body that was created from the terrain.

    The system generates shadow profiles as wires on planes and building faces. The system generates shadow faces on planar surfaces, nonplanar surfaces, and terrains.
  7. Click Apply to update the shadow profiles for the present settings.
  8. Click OK.

    Note: In the tree, the system creates shadow profiles under the active geometrical set. You can overwrite the active geometrical set or create a new geometrical set.

The system generates the shadow profiles of the building in the 3D area and datum features in the tree.