RECTANGULAR LIGHT DIRECTION INDICATOR

[davidlouis]

I would appreciate a line attached to a rectangular light created in sketchup which indicates the initial direction in which it shines.

I have tried to reverse the faces of the object / surface which represents the light but it seems pre programmed to shine in a specific direction depending on how it is first drawn and can only be changed by flipping along the sketchup blue axis. This means that there is no inherent visual feedback from the sketchup modelling window that its emmiting light in a specific direction.

The other lights like the spot and IES have this line and are directional objects anyway so its obvious. Not so with the rectangular light...

see attached jpgs for a visual demo of what I am on about.

If you could implement this in an upcoming release, that would be great.

Thanks

[dkendig]

Re: RECTANGULAR LIGHT DIRECTION INDICATOR

with version 1.48.66 or later, you can't just reverse the face, you need to rotate the entire group. The up direction should be the white face (default front face color). The reason you need to rotate the entire group, is we store the light information in the group itself, not the geometry that is inside of the group.

[thomthom]

Re: RECTANGULAR LIGHT DIRECTION INDICATOR

I still wish the face direction would matter - like it used to.

[dkendig]

Re: RECTANGULAR LIGHT DIRECTION INDICATOR

Sorry guys, attaching to the geometry rather than the group, caused some issues (can't remember what issues off the top of my head)

[davidlouis]

Re: RECTANGULAR LIGHT DIRECTION INDICATOR

Fair enough... :-\

From my experimenting, drawing a rectangular light from top left to bottom right and bottom right to top left creates a light that points down... and top right to bottom left or bottom left to top right creates a rectangular light that points up.

Of course as we have already discussed this is now irrelvant of the front/back face orientation...

I would thus still like to see a guide line or something pointing in the direction of the light emitted... much like you have on the vray ies light...

This will help us deal with the sketchup habit of front (white) and back (blue) and the instinct to reverse...which will be too hard to kick i think as most of us have been brought up on it from day one...

I know that the rectangular light object / surface is input driven in terms of size but i reckon one of the ruby scripters could help out in creating an object that automatically generates a guide line perpedicular to the front face (in the centre) which will remind us which direction it is emitting light.

Then even if you wanted to colour the 'light group' for easy recognition (thereby colouring both sides) you would still know which way it was 'pointing'...

Thoughts?

[dkendig]

Re: RECTANGULAR LIGHT DIRECTION INDICATOR

if someone offers free code to improve our program, we generally accept it with a smile.

[thomthom]

Re: RECTANGULAR LIGHT DIRECTION INDICATOR

where to start looking?