GroundPlane

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Ground Plane

Panels

Ground Plane

Ground Plane

The GroundPlane command opens the Ground Plane panel.

The ground plane provides an infinite horizontal platform for the image that stretches to the horizon in all directions positioned at a defined elevation. A ground plane renders much faster than using a surface as a background. Any material can be assigned to the ground plane.

The ground plane does not display in Technical or Wireframe display modes.


Without ground plane (left), with ground plane (right).

Ground Plane Panel

Panel options

On

Turns on the ground plane.

Show underside

Allows the "back" of the ground plane to be visible when viewed from below. Otherwise, the underside is transparent

Height above world XY plane

Sets the ground plane's height above the xy plane.

Automatic

Turns on auto-elevation that moves Ground Plane to the lowest point of the objects in the model. New objects added to the scene may change Ground Plane elevation. Auto-elevation ignores non-meshable* object types.

 

*Non-meshable object types do not generate render meshes. For example, curves, dimensions, texture mapping widgets, etc.

Effect

Shadow only

Makes the ground plane transparent, but allows shadows to still be cast on it.

Use a material

Assigns a material to the ground plane and edits the material. For information on setting a material, see Materials.

Texture mapping

These settings apply when a texture applied to the ground plane.

X/Y Offset (units)

Specifies the offset distance in units from 0,0,0.

X/Y Size (units)

Specifies the size in units of the texture.

Rotation

Specifies the rotation angle of the texture from 0.

To access hidden command-line options

  • Type a hyphen in front of the command name: -GroundPlane.
Command-line options

ShowPanel

Options
On
ShowUnderside=Off/On
AutomaticAltitude=Off/On
ShadowOnly=Off/On
Altitude=0
SetMaterial
Instance ID or Instance name

See also

Render

Render the objects using the current renderer.

GroundPlane in the Rhino 6 render display