Solidworks Photo View

[Placido Teofilo]

Fastforward to my final year of school, three years later. I had gotten pretty good at modeling, so my thesis was full of pretty black and white models, which amounted to not much more than screencaps of isometric drawings. I submitted my thesis, left university and carried on teaching myself the software in my newly acquired free time.

I was considering what sort of model I should use to show off the new features in this tutorial, and I settled with an old project that I had worked on back in my aerospace engineering program: an air motor.

I chose this for a few reasons. The air motors that we built in the workshop were constructed from different materials, having an aluminum cylinder, a painted steel base, a brass cam and a polished steel flywheel. These different materials and textures will demonstrate the different appearances that can be achieved in PhotoView 360.

Clicking any of the options within the hierarchy will open the Appearances, Scenes and Decals panel on the right hand side of the screen. Select the little arrow next to Appearances to expand the various types of appearance folders will be displayed. For this case, I opened the Metals folder and selected polished aluminum. This will give the entire cylinder part an aluminum finish. Any appearances applied below the assembly level will be saved in the individual SLDPRT file.

Now the appearances and scene have been set and we are ready to render. First, we need to load PhotoView 360 into SOLIDWORKS. This can be achieved by clicking the SOLIDWORKS Add-Ins tab in the Command Manager and selecting the PhotoView 360 box in the menu. This will create a new tab next to the Add-Ins tab labeled Render Tools.

In the render preview image below (Figure 7), I have decided that I do not like the color of the main base plate on my air motor model (so I changed it to a wooden finish). I am also unhappy with some of the lighting effects, so I play with the lighting settings (by default located in the Lighting tab of the Scene Property Manager in PhotoView 360) until I am happy with the preview. Typically, a higher value for reflections, refractions and so on will increase the render time. Using the render preview allows us to see how changes to appearance, scene and lighting will affect the final render without having to wait for a full render.

Still on the subject of scene lighting, another addition to SOLIDWORKS 2016 is the Scene Illumination Proof Sheet. This is much like a proof sheet that you may see in the photography industry or in graphic design. Clicking the icon will render your light settings and will display a new panel of tiles, each showing a rendered model with variations of the illumination settings (Figure 8).

The main settings under scrutiny are the render brightness, background brightness and scene reflectivity. Moving the increment slider allows us to alter the settings (coarse or fine) and we can see the changes as they are applied to the tiles. Selecting a new tile containing a rendered image will set this tile as the new baseline and we can iterate and play with it until we are happy with the results. We can switch between the correctly selected tile and the original image at any time by switching between the two tabs marked Original and Current Selection in the center of the panel.

If you want to capture a static image of the assembly in action, complete with motion blur, then simply move to the frame you wish to capture within the motion study window and press Final Render in the Render Options ribbon at the top of the screen.

Whether you want motion blur or not, when you do push the Final Render button, you will be greeted with another new addition to this latest version of PhotoView 360. Remember that pop-up window in previous versions that would encourage you to select a perspective view or add a camera? Well, that is back with a few more options for generating realistic renderings. You are no longer provided with a recommendation in a dialog box, but instead are provided with a list of options. These are:

Phillip Keane is currently studying his PhD at the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His background is in aerospace engineering, and his current studies are focused on the use of 3D-printed components in spaceflight. He previously worked at Rolls-Royce and Airbus Military and served as an intern for Made In Space and the European Southern Observatory.

I am using solidworks 2011 and when creating a preview of the final render of a scene set up looking through a camera i am faced with a preview window which looks as if it has took a render of a wall and the window is blank? anybody come across this problem before and know what it may be?

Are you using a standard scene or have you setup your own using lights? If you have setup your own scene with your own lights you have to be sure and check the box(on in photoview) because the lights won't automatically be on. If you can give me a bit more info i can help you out.

In the world of computer-aided design (CAD), rendering plays a crucial role in bringing designs to life. With the advancements in technology, there are now several powerful rendering tools available to designers and engineers. In this blog post, we will compare two popular rendering solutions: PhotoView 360 and SOLIDWORKS Visualize. Join us as we delve into the features, capabilities, and differences between these two rendering powerhouses.

The PhotoView 360 is directly available in SOLIDWORKS user interface, accessed by SOLIDWORKS add-ins without loading any new programs. PhotoView 360 allows user to create rendered views with multiple settings like brightness, directional lights, background environments, environment rotation, scene reflectivity etc. PhotoView 360 is preferred when the output quality of rendered image is not so important. In the mid of product design progress now and then designer / SOLIDWORKS User to get the feel of final product or just for internal communication the rendered image by PhotoView 360 is useful, and the rendering time will also be on higher side. The minute and intricate details in rendering will might be missed capturing in PhotoView 360.

SOLIDWORKS Visualize is a powerful rendering tool to create very High Quality stunning photo realistic rendering images. As the image quality is exceptional, these can be used for marketing communications like magazines, Brochures, banners, Websites etc. SOLIDWORKS Visualize professional is a standalone software and can be opened independently outside SOLIDWORKS. It has superior multiple settings options for rendering image creation also animation with motion video creation is possible. This is used for rendering when design is reached the final stage and helps to market the product before actual product prototype is made. Rendering time is usually less when compared to PhotoView 360 and SOLIDWORKS Visualize has capability to capture very minor and intricate details in design. Even non-SOLIDWORKS users, Photographers and marketing team members can use SOLIDWORKS Visualize to generate high quality imagers for their day-to-day activities.

PhotoView 360 gives an insight to designers during design on final product through rendered images and can be used only for internal communications. SOLIDWORKS Visualize is used to create high quality rendered images and rendered animation videos for marketing communications used for customer facing applications.

The below images are rendered using PhotoView 360 and SOLIDWORKS Visualize. The settings for both the images are maintained as same but can easily differentiate the quality of rendered image which is very high in SOLIDWORKS Visualize and the time taken to render in PhotoView 360 is 5 minutes and in SOLIDWORKS Visualize is 1 minute and also the thread details on lead screw is clearly captured.

Two desktop versions of SOLIDWORKS Visualize products are available i.e Visualize Standard & Visualize Professional. Visualize standard is available in all versions of SOLIDWORKS maintained under AMC.

Please reach out to Conceptia Konnect to discuss more on rendering solutions and understand benefits to your organisation in marketing your products. our specialists will help to make best possible solutions.

SOLIDWORKS Visualize Professional lets you tell a deeper story with your CAD data by generating photo-quality imagery, interactive animations, 360-degree spins, immersive Virtual Reality (VR), and much more. Communicate the most complex design details with ease and beat your competition to market.

Utilizing NVIDIA graphics card(s) for rendering is much faster than competitor CPU technology and helps to speed up your daily workflow, generating more content. This feature alone provides dramatic acceleration of the design and engineering process.

SOLIDWORKS Visualize can also leverage emerging GPU technology from NVIDIA, such as the NVIDIA Quadro VCA, for linear boosts in render speeds, resulting in a more efficient and productive 3D visualization experience.

In addition to leveraging one or many GPUs or CPUs, SOLIDWORKS Visualize can leverage both GPU and CPU simultaneously (Hybrid mode) in a single machine or across a network, which dramatically increases rendering performance. This render mode allows entry-level machines to have increased performance to generate content faster.

Already been working on your Visualize file and need to import some design changes? As your design evolves, simply save over the existing file and Visualize will update only the parts that have been changed. Visualize will even remember if you changed the color and keep that change on the newly updated part. You can always re-link the file if the name changes or the location moves.

Split out parts, surfaces, and faces with this handy integrated Part Splitter. Easily separate geometry to apply a different material or texture. No need to go back to your CAD package to make this change.

Add that extra touch of photorealism to your Visualize content with Depth of Field. This feature allows you to interactively select the point of focus by simply clicking on your model, and then adjust the amount of desired blur. You can even enter physical camera settings like F-Stop and Aperture.

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