Sylvain Pepoli

Hello, Well you should be able to import the terrain data from both formats, but you won't get the textures for now. You can always import a ground image (File -> Import -> Import a ground image) and place it in your scene but it will remain flat.

Hello, There are two features that may be useful in your case, they're located under the Tools menu, and they are called "Position tables on scene" and "Position and tilt tables on scene". They will both place your fields above the ground (or other shading objects), following the slope. The second one will tilt the fields to also match the ground slope. Is it what you are looking for ?

Hello, In the latest version of PVsyst (6.73) you should be able to set a negative misalign and get back to a positive pitch !

Hello, We released version 6.72 quickly after 6.71 to fix these yield issues, please update to check that it's all back to normal.

Hello, I can't see a way of simulating this, except maybe by making trees thinner. This would globally reduce their shading a little bit.

Hello, This is due to the fact that the bi-facial simulation using the 3D near shadings is not fully ready yet. This kind of objects will have to be used for it, when it's ready.

Hello, We'll allow document assembly in the generated PDF file, starting from PVsyst version 6.74. So you will be able to include the PVsyst report inside other PDF documents !

Hello, It is indeed quite odd that PVsyst is unable to generate the shadings picture for the report if it is able to display the scene in the edition dialog properly ... Can you test it on another computer ? (maybe one with a better graphics card, as you mentioned) If not, please export the project and send it to us at support@pvsyst.com, we'll try to check it on our side.

Hello, PVsyst adds half of the X spacing at both sides, which is why you get 2.33m, same for Y spacing. This has been a convention since the beginning, in order to consider the spacing around each module equally.

Hello all, PVsyst will allow negative N-S pitch for horizontal/tilted axis trackers in the next version.

Hello, Is this happening only when you click on "Apply" ? Or does the picture never appear correctly ? Can you please attach the picture you are trying to load so I can try on my side ?

Hello, No there is no need to set the exact altitude of the field, it is only useful if you model other shading objects like the building.

Hello, The units should be guessed from the DAE file automatically if it contains this info, else you can always select the correct unit in the dialog which pops up just after the import.

Thank you very much for your feedback, Actually Sketchup handles faces a different way and it allows reversed faces (just displaying them a little bit darker), when PVsyst struggles to display them correctly (this is due to the rendering engine).

Thank you for reporting this, we'll have a look at it as soon as possible !

Dear Jason, Could you please send us some sample files to support@pvsyst.com, like a DAE and SKP so we can have a look at it ? Thanks

Hello, Please have a look at the PVsyst help section called "Project design / Shadings / Near Shadings : Orientations". It gives a lot of help about defining orientations manually with the new tool.

Hello, Displaying the shadings animation over one day on very big scenes can cause these kind of crashes, especially when you define modules strings. This is due to the fact that PVsyst remembers all shadows for each animation step, so you can use the scrollbar afterwards to set an hour without having to recompute it.

Hello, Thanks for reporting this, we'll fix it in the next version.

The Module Layout is a planar view of the scene tables, and sometimes it can be looking very different from the 3D representation. This is also why the automatic filling may have some issues. We know some users get confused and we plan to improve the whole tool to ease understanding and configuration.

Hello, Thank you for the edit giving the solution to your issue. Did you try to directly use the "Print to PDF" button from the report ?

Hello Jose, This is due to Sketchup defining some faces "backwards", i.e they are oriented to the inside of the object. Sketchup doesn't really care about it, it will just draw the faces a bit darker, but in PVsyst this is important. Also you can do it on the Sketchup side ... What you can try to do is edit the imported object and click on the "Invert normals" button on the toolbar. You mention that it's only happening for the last two versions, which is odd as nothing was changed on this part.

Hello, Can you please send us some sample projects in which this happens everytime ? Send it to support@pvsyst.com and we'll have a look, it's really weird that PVsyst shuts down this way.

Hello brunok, The orientation is defined by the normal of the PV fields plane, in the global referential. So it is a combination of the field's tilt, azimuth and baseslope. It seems like you placed your fields on the rooftop and then rotated the whole scene, so in this case the baseslope should be the roof angle. Placing your fields on the ground would get you a -23° azimuth, but here they're tilted along the roof. Which orientations does PVsyst detect when you open the orientations tool (Tools -> Edit orientations) ? It seems like you defined two separate orientations (on each side of roofs) but you only get one in the end ?

Hello Adrien, What you seem to be misunderstanding is that the "PV objects" tab is not listing the objects found in the imported file but the materials. We chose to rely on the material instead of the objects because : - we can't convert full objects to PV faces, as this would mean that if you defined a parallelepiped PV module all of its 6 faces would be transformed to PV faces, - the material is easy to apply on faces in 3D modeling software, and it is always copied along with the object when you duplicate it - it's easier to select one or two materials than hundreds or thousands of objects for complex scenes So if you define a "PV face" material in Sketchup or AutoCAD and apply it on the real PV face of your objects, then you should be able to select it after you import the DAE file in PVsyst. About the settings information you're asking for, there shouldn't be any particular setting needed, the default ones should export and convert the materials correctly. The only advice I could give you would be to try to keep things simple, the complexity of the scene geometry has a direct impact on shadings calculation time. However you may want to have a very detailed and good-looking scene on your simulation report, in this case you may consider disabling shadow casting for objects which you know won't project any shadow on your PV fields, and this will ease calculations. I hope I could help you on that, you seem to be using this new import feature quite intensively which is great ! Sylvain