Learn how to identify and resolve commonly encountered solar study issues.
The lighting is too dark in shaded views
Symptom: In some shaded views, the lighting is darker than expected.
Issue: Changes to the software have resulted in slightly darker lighting in some shaded views.
Solution: To solve the problem, try the following:
- Change the sun position to an angle that produces the lighting you prefer.
- On the Graphic Display Options dialog, increase the Sun Intensity or Indirect Light value.
The sun path is turned on, but the sun is not displayed
Symptom: The sun path is turned on and the ground compass displays, but the sun does not display.
Issue: The current solar study mode is Lighting, and the Relative to View option is selected. When Relative to View is selected, the sun does not display because its position is controlled by the orientation of the view.
Solution: On the View Control Bar, click
Sun Path Off/On
Sun Settings, and do one of the following:
- If you want to display the sun based on project location, date, and time, then select either Still, Single Day, or Multi-Day.
- If you want to show the shadows cast directly from a specified sun position in the active view, then retain Lighting as the solar study mode, and clear Relative to View. Next, choose a preset for an artificial sun position, such as Sunlight from Top Right, or enter values for Azimuth and Altitude to specify the sun position.
The sun path does not resize to fit an updated model
Symptom: After you have made changes to a model, the sun path is too big or too small for the model.
Issue: By default, the sun path is displayed at 150% of the model radius in the view. As you change the size of the model or the visibility of its elements, the size of the bounding box updates automatically, but the sun path is not resized automatically.
Solution: Update the size of the sun path in proportion to the resized bounding box by right-clicking the sun path, and clicking Fit to Model. Alternatively, you can turn off the sun path, and then turn it on again.
The sun path is extremely large
Symptom: In a project that includes an imported DWG file, the sun path is extremely large.
Issue: The display size of the sun path in a 2D or 3D view is determined by the size of the bounding box that encompasses the visible model elements. If you imported a DWG file with frozen layers that are encompassed by an extremely large bounding box, the sun path is extremely large as a consequence.
Solution: Delete unnecessary layers from the view, and then update the size of the sun path in proportion to the resized bounding box by right-clicking the sun path, and clicking Fit to Model.
The sun path compass is not set to True North
Symptom: The sun path’s ground compass is not set to True North.
Issue: Project North is not rotated to True North.
Solution: Rotate the view to True North to ensure that the light falls on the correct sides of the building model and that the sun’s path through the sky is accurately simulated.
The sun path does not print
Symptom: The sun path is displayed in a view, but it does not print as part of the view.
Issue: The sun path is not designed to be printed as part of the view.
Solution: Save the solar study image to the project, and then print the saved image.