See all the news in the document below.
Contents
SketchUp
Integration news in windPRO 4.0
Open
Street Map Building import
Surface
exporter – paint on terrain
Easier
to create vegetation around PV areas with new windPRO shape exporters
Result
layer exporter – undefined areas now transparent
New
setting in Photomontage exporter
New
default when exporting Photomontages.
New
rightclick menu in SketchUp
New
shortcut button in Photomontage
New
shortcut buttons in the SketchUp Integration Tool
See the YouTube video about using this feature: Link
to YouTube
This feature can create an elevation line object in windPRO based on the data from SketchUp. More specifically a .wpo file. When items is exported from SketchUp to windPRO it used to be always as 3D objects, but since the content is containing a set of triangles, these can just as easily be used as TIN in an elevation object. This elevation object will then contain a set of lines with a single point (the triangle endpoints) and the finished TIN. In windPRO this new line object can be used as it is for calculating elevation, it can be imported as a new layer in an elevation object, or it can be merged with an existing line object. To merge with an existing line object, the new object should first be converted to real lines in the EMD editor using “Change contour interval”, and then extended with the line object it should be merged with, also in the EMD Editor with “Extend data”.
Above animation is using the SketchUp Sandbox tools that is part of the
standard SketchUp installation, also in the free SketchUp Make 2017. More
sophisticated commercial plugins to SketchUp exists.
There are many resources around on how to work with terrain data in SketchUp.
Here is a few links:
Sandbox tools
How a Landscape Architect
Grades a Site
Top 5 Extensions for Landscape Site
Analysis
https://artisan4sketchup.com/sculpt/
This can import buildings at any site very easily.
This is very useful when calibrating a Photomontage:
And very useful when building a 3D model of a Site:
This is a tool to create image masks. This is an alternative to using the rubber tool and can be a huge time saver. An example of usage could be a line of existing trees on a Photomontage that should be visible inside a solar PV area.
See the video.
This is a way to enable the user to replace the exported
surface texture with a transparent PNG file that follows the terrain. This
could for instance be a road. See the video.
The OUTLINE exporters are polyline versions of the existing polygon exporters. Using these it is possible to create vegetation along the outline of areas instead of only inside. Like this:
Instead of this:
The new Object position exporter is simply exporting windPRO object positions as point shape file. This can be useful for many things like for example creating 3D models at object positions.
Now point models can be scaled to any size. In 3.6 they would always be imported in the size they were created in.
windPRO 4.0 |
windPRO 3.6 |
|
|
If this is selected the last rendered photo is used instead of the background image. This can be useful if creating 3D presentations for sharing visualizations on the net.
This makes the export look nicer in general. The old default was “Auto”
This gives an easier workflow than finding the item in the tools-menu.
This creates a SketchUp Integration Tool session that is
linked to the specific camera object. This makes it easier to manage multiple
sessions and SketchUp projects within the same windPRO project.
If the users prefer, they can still open the SketchUp Integration Tool from the
main button in the windPRO GUI, and it will work as in
windPRO 3.6 where all cameras shared the same SketchUp Integration Tool
instance.
Brings
SketchUp to the front. If SketchUp is not loaded, it loads it. The button is
animated when SketchUp is loading or importing from windPRO to indicate when
SketchUp is busy.
If the SketchUp
Integration Tool is opened from a Photomontage, then this button focusses this
Photomontage. Else it focusses the last used
Photomontage.
The introduction animation is now replaced with a permanent tab, Resources, with help, links and information about the use of the SketchUp integration tool. This page is in fact a webpage that is on the EMD server and it can be updated independent of windPRO, and it will be updated as new resources will become available.