Projecting surfaces and polysurfaces?

[sinanp]

Hi

I have made a site model based on contours from a survey. So each contour was at the appropriate level and I extruded each curve creating a polysurface. I may or may not drape a surface over this to create a continuos surface, but its not really necessary as I'm just trying to quickly model the site and tree cover to get an idea of shading on site throughout the year. I made some simple trees, a cylinder trunk and a sphere for the canopy, grouping both for each tree, each tree is now at the right height. All the trees are in the correct location in plan/top view and I was wondering whether there is a way that I can project all the trees at once onto the appropriate contour surface below? I know the project command works for curves projecting onto a surface, wonder if there is a similar way that 3d object can be projected onto a surface below so it is not flattened but merely 'sits' on the surface below. Hope this makes sense and hope there is a better way. Also if anyone has any suggestions on how I might improve the above process next time round please let me know.

Thanks

[sinanp]

Re: Projecting surfaces and polysurfaces?

And forgot to add, what would be the best way to output a series of sunpath/shading renders from this model? I have placed a sun source in the model based on the location of the site and would now like to take a series of simple renders at different times of day and across the year. Is there a good way to do this, or would I need to change the sun settings (time/date) manually for each render? And can I output a video or this in some form or another? ie showing shadows moving during different times, ideally with some sort of labelling for each changed frame (eg. 4pm, dec 10th)

many thanks