jennyultimate Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Does anyone know a way to get the cable lights (either from the chief library or elsewhere) to be modified to an angle other than 90d (or perpendicular) to the wall you are starting it from? I am re-modeling a dodecagon shaped living space that has exposed beams going to a central post. When I put the cable light at the exterior wall under or at the beam and try to get it to angle towards the center post, it will not do it. As I said it picks one of the walls left or right of the corner angle and only goes perpendicular to either wall. I tried going into the attributes and changing the x- y angles by 15d here and there as a test, but it didn't work. I attached a PDF of my project so you can see what I am working with. (My chief file is larger than 10MG) Please ignore the error circles on some of the walls. In order to get the 3d view looking right I had to make some adjustments that caused those error circles. I have another plan saved for construction. This one is for visuals only. Thank you. Jenny Davidson home V13.1 chief talk file-Floor Plan.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GerryT Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Something you probably need to "play with". Zipping and posting the plan or an example would get you an immediate solution. Generally -- Open the symbol, under options, and change from wall mount to floor mount. Then set the offset from floor as you want in the DBX and move where you want. Change the angle in the symbol - probably Y axis, to what you need. You may need to relocate the origin. Not difficult -- but confusing if you haven't seen it done before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barton_Brown Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 Jenny, To get the light symbol to be other than 90 degree (perpendicular) to the wall, I believe you need to change the Z axis rotation (be sure to hit the 'rotation' button for it to take effect). Also, in the 2D block, you will probably want to generate a new 2D block showing the rotation. The x and y rotations should allow the lighting to follow the beam to the center (assuming the beam is not horizontal). As Gerry said, this will take a lot of fiddling... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug_Park Posted July 23, 2014 Share Posted July 23, 2014 The cable lights that we supply have the "Wall Mounted" attribute checked. So they pick a wall to hook to and align to it. 1) Copy the "Cable Lighting" symbol and paste it into your library. 2) Open it in your library and on the Options panel select floor mounted. (The height off floor is ignored) 3) The 3D origin needs to be modified. On the 3D Panel select Specify Origin and set the Y position to 60" this is half the total length. 4) Now set the Z value to 84 5/8" to get the same height result as the orignial or whatever works best for you. 5) Now you can place it wherever you want and rotate it to any orientation that you prefer. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jennyultimate Posted July 24, 2014 Author Share Posted July 24, 2014 Hi Doug. Your answer seamed the easiest to follow and I am able now to angle them along the beam in plan view. However, now I can't lengthen the cable light so it goes from the outer wall to the center post (210") without it disappearing altogether. I tried changing the bounding box dimensions thinking the given depth @ 113.25" was the length as it seemed the closest in appearance but it did not change it at all. And in camera view, it is not where it shows on the floor plan. It appears too low and not at all where it is placed on the floor plan. Plus and I can't get it to angle up from the outer wall @ 96" to the center post @ 140". After playing with a lot of different dimensions and options, I can't figure it out. Is there a "how to" for dealing with this? Or do you have time to help me figure this out? Thanks so much. Jenny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barton_Brown Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Hi Jenny, I also tried Doug's list of actions and was unsuccessful in getting the cable lights to work as desired. Specifically, even though it was 'floor mounted' I could not get it to rotate. The funny thing is that other CA wall mount lights also had this issue when placed in a plan and then changed from wall mount to floor mount. I'm not sure what is going on - could still be user error on my part, but I think it is a CA issue having to do with a symbol starting out as a wall mount symbol and then changing it to floor mount. Why do I say this? Because I exported the cable light as a .3ds symbol (which required at least one wall be present for the light to show in CA which is a clue that CA still thinks it is a wall mount symbol). Anyway, once imported into SketchUp 8, I exploded the component, deleted the wall elements and saved the cable light only elements as a SketchUp 8 file. I was then able to import this symbol back into CA as a 'floor mounted' light which I can rotate in plan view around the Z axis and from the symbol dbx can rotate about the Y axis. Also, I can stretch the symbol by changing the 'width' in the object dbx. I didn't mess with the actual light data. It has one default light right now. If you stretch the lights, you will need to add lights and manually configure the physical location if you want them to show correctly in a render or ray trace. Anyway, attached is my version of the CA cable light which might work better for you... Since it is a library object, it is a .calibz file. Download and double-click on it and it should be placed in your user library (where you can delete it if it doesn't meet your needs). CA cable light.calibz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barton_Brown Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Jenny, If you find this symbol works for you but gets too distorted when stretched, and/or you need more lights, I can make these changes in SketchUp and create a new symbol, or, you could just use multiple copies of the existing symbol linked along the beam. Just a thought... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GerryT Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 FYI: Changing the symbol from wall mount to floor mount allows rotation just fine for me. As a symbol, it can only be rotated in the xy plane. To rotate in ZX or ZY you must use the symbol DBX and rotate around the proper axis. Also you can not stretch the symbol since it appears that electrical symbols do not allow stretch Hotpoints -- at least this one?. Change to a fixture rather than a electrical symbol then you'll get your stretch points in which you can set your stretch planes. . You don't want to stretch anyway because your lights will be spaced too far apart. Just put two symbols back to back. resizing would just increase the size of the lights which you also don't want. Not sure why you don't post an example which would get an immediate answer. At this point, I'm guessing that Scott is just shaking his head. EDIT: --you can build your own cable lights with the # of lights you want and the lengths by using the track light heads and cylinders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barton_Brown Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Gerry, attached is a .plan with only the cable light mounted to a wall and changed to 'floor mount'. I am unable to rotate the symbol about the z axis. What am I missing? cable_lighting.plan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GerryT Posted July 24, 2014 Share Posted July 24, 2014 Because you originally attached to a wall, it stays snapped to a wall. Change the symbol to floor mount in the library and place in the middle of the floor. It will then rotate in xy. but not zx, zy (use symbol DBX). I guess this could be considered a bug -- Chief is doing some funny things with electrical symbols? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barton_Brown Posted July 25, 2014 Share Posted July 25, 2014 Thanks Gerry, altering the symbol in the library was the step I missed. Obviously, I didn't read Doug's instructions carefully enough - I glanced at them and thought I knew what I was doing. I made the naive assumption that changes made to a symbol while in a plan file would be correctly applied to the symbol. Without Doug's process steps to follow, It is not at all intuitive that, since CA Core libraries are locked, one must first copy the symbol to the user_library, alter its 'mounting' there BEFORE adding to a plan. Or, add the original symbol to a plan, make the change, and (the important step), save the symbol back to the user library and then re-add back to the plan, at which time the modification will take effect. I'm going to submit this as a defect as I suspect I'm not the only one that has been bitten by this behavior... EDIT: defect submitted to tech support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jennyultimate Posted August 20, 2014 Author Share Posted August 20, 2014 Hi Barton, Thanks for the new cable light symbol. I can stretch it once it is in the plan by deselecting "retain aspect ratio" and the lights don't distort or anything. I am still having trouble getting it to angle up from the start point at the outer wall (approx. 105" under the beam) up to the center post @ approx. 170". The beam is 200" in length.I tried changing the x, y axis's in the Specify Origins box (in the symbol specs) but then the light disappeared altogether. I guess I don't understand the x, y, z axis thing very well.Here is my plan. You might be able to see what I mean by looking at the actual plan better. Davidson home V13.1 with cable light.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barton_Brown Posted August 20, 2014 Share Posted August 20, 2014 Hi Jenny, the plan you attached had no content. I suspect you compressed it while it was still open in CA. Please close it out in CA, compress and re- attach. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barton_Brown Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Hi Jenny, Attached are three images with the three cable light sets in the kitchen. These are 'dark night' images. The first is a render with shadows, the second is 'high quality' ray trace with cable lights only, the third is 'high quality' ray trace with cable lights and three of your non-displaying lights turned on. I sent you an email containing the zip file of the plan from which these images were made. I adjusted the light data for the cable lights so there are 5 spot lights pointing straight down of '40 watt' intensity each. Click on the cable light in plan view and save it as a symbol. If you need horizontal cable lights, when you bring them back in from the library, they are horizontal - the slope data is apparently not retained when an object is save as a library object. Oh, just noticed when looking at the last ray trace, the hood doesn't go completely to the ceiling... Hope this helps! If you have questions, PM me or email. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe_Carrick Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 Just curious, has anyone tried makeing the symbol "Ceiling Mounted" with "Flush Mounted"? The z origin might need to be adjusted to mount at the correct height relative to the beam, but it should work. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barton_Brown Posted August 21, 2014 Share Posted August 21, 2014 has anyone tried making the symbol "Ceiling Mounted" with "Flush Mounted"? The z origin might need to be adjusted to mount at the correct height relative to the beam, but it should work. Joe, works perfectly! Thanks for the tip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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