BETA Job/Solar North Tool

PlusSpec Community General Discussion and Questions
1

Hi Beta Testers,

I would like to hear your thoughts on the new Job tool layout and the Solar North Tool.

All your information is valid and really helps us here at Rubysketch.

Kind Regards
Dean

2

Hi PP Team,

As mentioned in my initial email re Beta 1 of this tool I’ve always meat to put this type of shadow function on my wishlist but keep forgetting to mention it so was pleasantly surprised to see it in the Beta 1 issue.

Following are some comments re the current Beta 2 version, these are largely the same as Beta 1 comments except the “transparency” issue I mentioned in Beta 1 seems to have been fixed so have removed it from this post.

  1. I think it would be more useful if the two Equinox scenarios were also shown.

  2. Would like to see Sunrise and Sunset times for the location.

  3. Would be even more useful if one was able to select their own dates and times so one could show shadows on an hourly basis. This could be entered via a “dialog” box. It is now becoming common place to show/discuss solar gain issues with energy conscious designs so more flexibility in the generation of shadow diagrams would be of the utmost benefit.

  4. I like how the scenes generated use a “Monochrome” face style

Bye for now,
Zorro

3

Hi Zorro,

Thats great to hear :slight_smile:

  1. Thanks for the feedback. I will bring this up with the team.

  2. This is another great idea and Ill bring it up with the team also.

  3. Your able to currently do this using the SketchUp Tool. but its something Ive thought about and it could become very useful as doing it in SketchUp takes a while.

  4. Great to hear :slight_smile: glad you like it. It makes it easier for using in Layout.

Thanks for all your feedback and I will bring it up with the team.

Kind Regards
Dean

4

Hi Dean,

With regard to my point number 3)…

Yes I realise you can do this with Sketchup but as you say, and from experience it takes a while. My thought was that PlusSpec could offer a dialog box where you can check/tick a series of parameters that include dates/times then PlusSpec would automatically generate the relevant number of scenes.

For example I could select March 20, and a time range from 8.00am to 6.00pm on an hourly basis… this would then generate 11 shadow scenes. Taking it a step further it would be even more useful if it included the Sunrise time then by hour from the nearest whole hour passed Sunrise to the last whole hour before Sunset then the actual Sunset.

I’m sure others would find this a very useful addition to the PlusSpec Toolbox.

Zorro