1. Rendering Like a Pro (in Less than 30 Minutes)
Jordan Tadic, Application Engineer
3DVision Technologies
Download most up-to-date presentation @ 3dvision.com/SWWPresentations
(case sensitive)

2. Santa at a Ferrari Dealership
“He has this look about
him as if he is deliriously
happy in a selfish sort of
way.”
-Chris Snider

3. Framed Studio Painting

4. Jordan‟s Background
• BS in Mechanical Engineering (00-04)
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, OH
• Automation Engineer (04-08)
Atlantic Tool & Die
Strongsville, OH
• Application Engineer (08-Present)
3DVision Technologies
Cleveland, OH
• SolidWorks Certifications:
CSWE, CSWP, Surfacing, Sheet Metal, Weldments,
Instructor, Support Technician, WPDM, 3DVIA Composer

5. Agenda
• Overview of rendering with PhotoView 360 in SolidWorks 2011 (30:01)
− What is PhotoView 360?
− Basic Workflow
− Materials
− Appearances
− Decals
− Scenes
− Lights
− Cameras
− Output Image Settings
− File Management
• Hands-on practice (29:59)

6. Changes in 2011
• PhotoWorks is dead
• PhotoView is fully integrated into SolidWorks‟ interface
− DisplayManager
− Appearances are automatically grouped
− Advanced appearance settings
− SW lights can be used for PV 360 renderings
− New 2D background options
− Decals available in all versions of SW
− Decals recognize PNG transparency
− Integrated preview / separate preview window
− PhotoView rendering for animations

7. Where did PhotoView 360 come from?

8. Basic Workflow
Lights, Camera, Action! (…almost in that order)
1. Apply materials
2. Apply appearances
3. Apply scene
4. Opt‟l: Create light(s)
5. Opt‟l: Create camera(s)
6. Specify output settings
7. Render

9. Materials
• Apply materials via FeatureManager Tree
• Customize material appearances:
1. RMB in FMT > „Edit Material‟
2. RMB material > „Copy‟
3. Expand „Custom Materials‟
4. RMB > „New Category‟
5. RMB > „Paste‟
6. Edit appearance
7. Save

10. Applying Appearances
1. Drag
2. Drop
3. ALT+Click

11. Components of an Appearance
Illumination
Color
Image
Surface Finish

12. Advanced Appearance Settings – Color/Image
Geometry filters to assist with selections
SolidWorks comes with an entire library of hidden
textures. Browse to one @ C:Program FilesSolidWorks
2011SolidWorksdataImagestextures, but know that
you‟ll need a bump map to go with the “texture” image
Save all the tweaks you made to the standard appearance
as your very own custom appearance (similar to the
material library with plenty more appearance options).
Some appearances have 3 layers of colors. Usually, the
most dominant is listed at the top, but not always.
Create/save your custom swatches so they can be
referenced in the future.

13. Advanced Appearance Settings – Mapping
surface
spherical projection
cylindrical
Mapping options. „Automatic‟ typically defaults to
„Surface‟ mapping which is the only option that cannot be
rotated.
Pay attention to your scaling factors so you can use a
consistent value for every similar appearance.

14. Advanced Appearance Settings – Surface Finish
bump displacement
Utilize any black and white
image file. White areas
will be raised and dark 1mm
areas will be depressed.
While displacement
mapping correlates to an
actual numeric distance
value, experimentation 2.5mm
needs to be performed to
achieve a desirable bump
mapping value.
5mm

15. Advanced Appearance Settings – Illumination
DIFFUSE: Typically always set to 1. Only turn down if you‟d like something to
be dimmed. Good way to simulate an object being covered by a shadow.
SPECULARITY: [Requires SW light to be on in PV] Controls the intensity of
highlights caused by lights.
SPECULAR COLOR: [Requires SW light to be on in PV] Controls the color of
highlights caused by lights.
SPECULAR SPREAD: [Requires SW light to be on in PV or “Blurry Reflections”
to be activated] Controls the blurriness of highlights and/or reflections.
REFLECTIVITY: Controls the intensity of the reflections of surrounding
objects. Value of 1 simulates a mirror.
BLURRY REFLECTIONS: Enables “Specular Spread” to control the blurriness
of reflections.
TRANSPARENCY: A value of 0 is opaque and a value of 1 is invisible.
LUMINOUSITY: Controls the amount of light emitted from the surface. A low
value makes the surface glow, and a high value mimics a light.
INDEX OF REFRACTION: [Requires “Transparency” > 0] Controls the
deformation of the background as it passes through the transparent surface.
REFRACTION ROUGHNESS: [Requires “Transparency” > 0] Controls the
blurriness of the transparent surface.

16. Decals
Decals can be created from any standard raster image
file type, but my favorite is the .PNG file type because it
can include transparency (i.e. leave the masking process
to your photo editing software).
A decals can utilize the same illumination values as
its underlying appearance, or you can fully customize
it (as you can with any appearance).

17. Scene Settings
BACKGROUND: Can be set to: None, Color, Gradient, Image, Use
Environment
ENVIRONMENT: Can use any standard 2D raster image file, but ideally
meant to work with 360⁰ spherical .HDR environment files.
FLOOR: Consists of reflections and shadows.

18. Scene Settings Continued
ROTATION: This should be your first try to get your lighting right. Rotate
the scene by about 15⁰ increments while waiting for your preview window
to catch up.
SAVE: Once you have all your settings just right, go ahead and save
your scene for repetitive future use.
RENDERING BRIGHTNESS: Controls the intensity of the
light emitted by the scene onto the model.
SCENE REFLECTIVITY: Controls the intensity of
the scene‟s reflections onto the model. Value of 0
means the scene will not be visible in any model
reflections.

19. Lights
So if rotating the scene and adjusting its rendering brightness hasn‟t produced the
results you were looking for, then you might need some extra help from a few lights.
There are four types of lights:
Directional Light: Cannot be enclosed within walls. Acts as a source of sunlight. Set shadows: 3-5
Spot Light: Conical distribution of light with optional fog setting to display light cone.
Point Light: Glowing ball of light with adjustable radius for light and fog.
Appearance Light: Set luminosity illumination setting above 0.
TIP: Use the four view
viewport to easily
position your lights in
3D space.

20. Cameras
TARGET BY SELECTION: Pick a point on a face of your model to activate a red target
FIELD OF VIEW: Most easily adjusted by dragging the FOV window in the graphics
area. A large field of view with a short camera distance applies a drastic perspective.
DEPTH OF FIELD: Applies blurriness before and after blue DOF planes.

21. Settings
OUTPUT IMAGE SIZE: If you‟re using a camera, set this to “Use
SolidWorks View”. If not, specify a resolution.
IMAGE FORMAT: PNG files are the perfect mix of quality and
compression. They also have the ability to store transparency, so
that makes them the best choice when your scene background is
set “None”. If you‟re looking for the greatest amount of
compression, save as a .JPG.
RENDER QUALITY: How much time do you have?
BLOOM: A way to add a glowing effect to any object even it has
a 0 set for its luminosity value. Only apparent when final render
is completed.
CONTOUR RENDERING: A brand new option to add outlines to
your model edges a t a specific thickness and color. Only apparent
when final render is completed.

22. File Management
CENTRALIZED: I always highly
recommend storing your customized
SolidWorks files, templates, and
libraries in a centralized/organized
folder either on your local machine
(single user) or a network drive (multiple
users). Just create a group of
directories that mimics the system
options‟ “File Locations” list. You can
see I added some sub-directories keep
things better organized.
EMBEDDED: As a document property, you
can choose to embed your referenced
appearance files into the SolidWorks
part/assembly file. If you don‟t do this,
you‟ll need to use “Pack and Go…” to send
the file to anyone that does not have
access to your centralized files above.

23. Questions?
Jordan Tadic
440-425-0114, 235
jtadic@3dvision.com