LED-strips

[swave]

Today more and more lights are done with LED-strips. I didn't find a matching light in SH3D, so I tried to simulate it with a row of small lights confined between 2 small walls. But the single lights are still visible.



Is there a better way for LED-strips? Could they be added in a future version?

Thanks

[ElfenM]

One of the free sources I found is this, but you need to sign up to be a member to download it. Then you need to convert it to one of the files SH3D handles and then import it and adjust its size.

https://grabcad.com/library/tag/led.htm ... er_page=20

[swave]

It should not only be a 3D object but also a light source. And I don't know if SH3d can even handle such long lights. It should probably be created with many lights anyway as there really are separate lights inside the strip. But to adjust every single one separately is a lot of work. It would be easier if there's only one setting that applies to all lights. Maybe I should have posted this thread in the feature requests

Thanks

[okh]

Had the same problem a while back, not sure it made sense to create a separate LED light-strip for SH3D, but I made a simple one. Could not be bothered adding more than four light-sources to the model though.

The 12V I bought (for some €12), has lots more LEDs, but a pretty low lumen output. Model posted in: SF 3D models 368.

ok

led_strip_ed.sh3d

[swave]

Thanks, sounds good. But how do I use it? After importing I just get a kitchen cabinet, I don't see any lights, also after rendering. Do I need to unpack it?

Thanks.

[okh]

Nope, just open the file, look at the furniture list (pane left, bottom), there you will see one group of LED strips and one LED strip (placed to the right of the walls). Copy and paste into your drawing. (If you export OBJ / import, you will loose the light-source properties.) The kitchen cabinets (top also has a light-source, set to 0%), you can also ignore. Just select the LED light strip either from the pane or from the drawing and copy. But - it is the very nature of LED strips, that they are narrow, so it is not very easy to spot in the drawing.

[swave]

Ok, that worked. Didn't think of just opening it and I can sure use it in the kitchen. However from my picture above you can see that I wanted to place it along stairs, so with an elevation. I could do this with an object with rotate-on-import, but that's not possible with just copy'n'paste. Is there a way to do it with your strip? By the way, how did you create that anyway?

Thanks

[okh]

SH3D does not allow rotating an object after it has been imported. And if you import/export, you will loose the light-properties. So, no, the model posted cannot be turned from within SH3D.

The model itself is very simple (just a box with one side translucent), but the usual 3d formats (like .obj and .dae) do not support light-sources. Therefore the lightsources were added by editing the advanced furniture properties (see several posts about this or page 9-10 of the SVG guide). For a light source, you will need several light sources for the model: repeat properties separated by space:

Code: Select all

lightSourceX#2=2 4 6 
lightSourceY#2=81 1 1 1
lightSourceZ#2=1 1 1 1
lightSourceColor#2=#ffff33 #ffff33 #ffff33 #ffff33
lightSourceDiameter#2=1 1 1 1

While doing this is certainly not impossible, it may take a while if you are not familiar with editing advanced properties and you need to read up on the FurnitureLibraryEditor and advanced editing. Trouble here is the scaling. Making a model of an angled lightstrip is not that difficult, but as the rotation cannot be changed in SH3D, it means one would have to rely on scaling (and skew the object to wrong proportions). So making a generic, angled LED-strip is difficult - at least I have not come up with a good idea how to do it.

The easiest way to create the effect of a light-strip is probably adding lightsources from the catalogue, downscale to minimum size place them where you want them.

ok

[swave]

Not being able to rotate an object around any axis is probably the most missed feature right now, I could have used that many times.

Interesting reading. I might try this someday. I'm pondering now how the furniture editor or the import dialog could be changed to make it easy to add lights to a model. Like that I could import any model, also a rotated LED-strip or any chandelier downloaded from the internet, and add light properties. But without a full grown light editor I don't think there's an easy solution. I'm a programmer myself but not fluent in Java, I don't think I can help that way. But I'll follow the development.

Thanks for the hints

[okh]

I for one would agree with having more properties, like rotation and lightsources and so on, available from within SH3D (from an advanced menu). Or have all properties easily available from FunitureLibraryEditor. That said, doing the modifications to an object is not black magic, either. Trust me, even a lawyer can do it [:)]

Long an short of it is, simplest way in your case, add more light-sources to your staircase... ok

PS Contemplating LED strips for my own staircase too, but electrician wants a fortune to set it up, so it may have to wait. Better me going on an extravagant holiday than him.