Setting TX Orientation in Sionna Using Blender

[tlstkddn999]

Hello,

I'm currently using Sionna v1.0 and have a question regarding the orientation of the TX and RX, particularly the boresight direction of the TX antenna.

I'm extracting environments from Blender and importing them into the Sionna scene. I place the TX and RX at specific coordinates to run various tests. However, for accurate ray-tracing and beamforming analysis, I would like to control the TX antenna's orientation, for example, to have it point toward a specific building or reflectors in the scene.

To do this, I need to obtain or set the TX's orientation vector based on the geometry defined in Blender. What would be the best way to extract or define the antenna boresight direction from Blender, and then apply it correctly in Sionna?

Additionally, is there a way to visually debug the orientation (boresight direction) of the TX or RX within the Sionna scene preview?
For example, can I render local coordinate axes or some other visual cues to confirm that the antennas are facing the intended direction?

Thank you!

[merlinND]

Hello @tlstkddn999,

There is currently no way to set the antenna orientation from Blender.

for example, to have it point toward a specific building or reflectors in the scene

I think that the easiest way would be to first load the scene, and then get the Shape of your building based on its ID. The Shape object contains the geometry, and has helpers to compute its bounding box, etc.
Then, based on that data and the antenna position, you can automatically set its orientation.

Consider also the look_at option when constructing radio devices: https://nvlabs.github.io/sionna/rt/api/radio_devices.html#sionna.rt.RadioDevice

is there a way to visually debug the orientation (boresight direction) of the TX or RX within the Sionna scene preview?

If I understand your question correctly, please try the show_orientations option of scene.preview(): https://nvlabs.github.io/sionna/rt/api/scene.html#sionna.rt.Scene.preview