Simple Rendering

When you need a quick image of your design how do you get it? From screen captures to renderings there are many techniques. Speed, quality, and options available are some fo the factor to consider. Let’s examine a few of the many choices.

1. Simple screen capture. Very fast but very limited in options (no background removal). Use your favorite screen capture method. Windows 7 has the Snipping Tool built in which works very well. Simple, low resolution, what you see is what you get.

2. Image Capture. Also very fast but limited in options. This gets your full graphics area (minus clutter) onto the windows clipboard to paste directly into another application. Tip: A good option for splitting your graphics area into multiple views and getting clean capture. This is a SOLIDWORKS command located under View>Screen Capture > Image Capture.

3. Renderings. If you have SOLIDWORKS Professional or Premium you have a very powerful integrated rendering engine. This method will offer you tons of options and its very user friendly so don’t worry if you don’t know anything about ray tracing of lighting. Turn on the PhotoView 360 add-in, set a few options and create a stunning rendering in minutes.

Next, we’ll explore some basic settings and a few tricks to get a nice looking image fast.

1. Apply appearances and background scene if you haven’t already. One easy technique is to use the Task Pane (Appearances, Scenes, and Decals). Double-click to apply (appearance or scene) or drag an appearance onto a face to apply to something more specific than the entire document (face, feature, body, part, assembly override). Tip: you can copy and paste appearances by clicking on a face/component in the graphics area.
2. Set the display styles (shaded, shaded with edges, HLR, etc.)
3. Try using ambient occlusion for a more realistic look.
4. Set a good camera angle. Turning on perspective will get you by but why not get that perfect view-it only takes a few seconds. Adjust the graphics view to an approximate angle you like, then click the display manager icon in the feature manager tree, click the camera icon, then right-click camera. Use the manipulator in the graphics area to adjust the camera, drag the square frame to adjust perspective, drag the red dot to adjust where your camera is pointed (many advanced options available here as well). Click ok when you like the preview. Important: That only creates the camera, now change to that new camera view using the space bar or expand the cameras and right-click Camera 1 > camera view.
5. Environment. If the ground/environment need adjustment, use Edit Scene to adjust the ground orientation/height, lighting, and environment rotation. Right-click the Scene in the Display Manager > Edit Scene.
6. Increase the image quality before doing your image capture (options > document properties > image quality).

If using one of the simple image capture methods described previously, do that now. If you’re looking for better quality and more options, just a few more steps.

1. Render Options. Turn on the add-in for PhotoView 360. Click the Render Tools tab in the Command Manager. Click Options and set the options appropriately (at a minimum set the Output image size and Final render quality).
   1. Tip: choose Use SOLIDWORKS View to match the camera size. For more advanced options like Bloom or Contour (edges) you can explore the other settings in the same dialog.
   2. Tip: turn on dynamic help at the top of the options dialog for a tooltip explanation of each setting.
   3. Tip: set the final render quality to Good or Better while experimenting, then Better or Best when ready for your real final render. Click the help icon fora w full explanation of these settings.
2. Preview. Check out a preview of what the rendering will look like. Click Preview Window. Experiment with various scenes and appearances and get real time updates in the preview window. Tip: move your cursor over any region in the preview to get that region to process faster.
3. Final Render. When you like the preview click Final Render. Once complete, save the image in the preferred format. Tip: use png or tif for higher images for presentations (no background so they blend nicely into presentations).

Time saving tip: If you have several renderings to complete use the Schedule Render command instead of Final Render you can schedule a time for it to run and schedule all of your other renderings to process in sequence after completion. Use various settings, backgrounds, camera angles and even various models. Once you’ve scheduled everything, open SOLIDWORKS Task Scheduler to view the queue and get the renderings processing.