Render View

Generate a 3D perspective rendered view of the drawing.

This function allows you to generate a 3D rendered view of the drawing with optional light settings. The rendering may take a few seconds for larger drawings.

• CAD functions are not active in the Render View.

• You can only activate the Render View function in the Drawing layout (drawing space).

You can use the Save View function to save the image of the Render View to an image file.

Procedure

The drawing below shows the front, top and isometric views of a Flange.

To view the rendered view of a drawing:

1. Select View ► Render View or click the icon in the Misc toolbar. Alternatively, right-click the drawing window and select Render View from the popup context menu.

2. The Render View is generated. It may take a few seconds for larger drawings.

Render View Navigation

The following navigation controls enable you to explore a drawing in 3D by moving and looking around the drawing in 3D.

Right-click to bring up the Render View context menu.

Simulation Renderer Flythrough

The flythrough function allows you to move the render view camera along a predetermined path in the drawing, generating an animation that can also be saved to disk as an AVI (video) file.

During a flythrough, you can press [Spacebar] to pause/unpause it. If you want to exit the flythrough before it is finished, press [Esc].

Flythrough Settings

In Render view:

1. Right-click and select Flythrough... in the popup context menu to display the Flythrough Settings window.

Camera Path

You can select an existing camera path from the Camera path dropdown, or add a new path for the camera. If required, you can also specify a separate path for the target point.

To add a new path:

1. Click Add in the Camera path section.

2. You are prompted to indicate an entity in the drawing to use as the camera path. Usually you would indicate a polyline or spline but almost any entity is accepted, although results may be strange.

3. When you indicate an entity, you are prompted to enter a name for the new path.

4. Enter a name or accept the default name.

5. The Flythrough Settings window reappears with the current camera path set to the path you just created.

6. If required,you can elevate the camera above the camera path by entering a value in the Height above path field.

Target Path

Enter a non-zero value in the Sight distance field if you want the camera to look at a point on the target path, which is the specified distance along the path in front of the camera, as it moves.

Motion

The speed and run time of the flythrough are inter-related, and are also dependent on the length of the camera path. Setting the speed will calculate a new runtime by dividing the length of the path by the speed; and setting the runtime will calculate a new speed by dividing the length of the path by the runtime.

Enter a speed in the Speed field and then press [Tab]. The Runtime value automatically updates based on the calculated runtime. Similarly, if you enter a run time in the Runtime field and press [Tab] the Speed value automatically updates.

Select the Reverse direction checkbox if you want the camera to begin at the path end point and move towards the path start point.

Select the Hide camera path checkbox if you don't want the entity that you specified as the path to appear in the flythrough.

Video Capture

To capture a video:

1. Select an output file for the video capture by clicking Browse.

2. Enter a new filename or indicate an existing .avi file, which will be overwritten.

3. Select the resolution of the video file from the Output resolution dropdown. A higher resolution results in a larger video file.

4. Select a video capture frame rate. A higher frame rate results in a smoother video but also a larger video file.

5. Click Run Flythrough to check that your flythrough settings are correct. If you are happy with the resulting animation, press [Esc] to exit the flythrough.

6. Select the Enable video capture checkbox and then click Run Flythrough again.

7. The flythrough displays on the screen while it is being captured to video file.

Capturing to higher resolutions and higher frame rates may cause the flythrough to slow down. The resulting .avi will, however, play back at the correct speed.

Compatibility

The flythrough paths and settings are imported and exported when loading or saving DWG files.

Environment Settings (H/W Accelerated Mode Only)

If you are using the hardware accelerated renderer (System Settings ► Hardware Acceleration), the Environment option will be visible in the lower-left of the render view:

Select the Environment checkbox to display the Environment Settings panel in the top left corner of the Render View:

The Environment Settings control the appearance of the "background" in the Render View. These controls can be switche doff by clicking the X in the top right corner of the control. The control can be moved by clicking and dragging the title bar to its desired location.

There are two settings - Presets and Extra Options.

Presets

This option provides several skybox styles that you can directly apply to the current scene.

In Custom mode, all skybox settings can be manually customised.

These options allow you to change the colour and style of the skybox. The skybox is a spherical structure, which can be divided into three parts - Sky, Haze and Ground. Each part can have a different colour and they are blended from top down to create a linear colour gradient.

Attributes like the Elevation, Haze Thickness, Earth Fade and Sky Saturation can be tuned directly by dragging the relevant slider. The changes will be applied instantly to the scene in the Render View.

The colours of Sky, Haze and Ground can be changed by clicking on the relevant Colour item. A colour palette will pop up for direct colour picking.

Changes will be immediately visible in the scene. However, you may find it difficult to perceive the result as the current view normally shows a fraction of the skybox. Therefore, we provide the Show Skybox/Set Sun option to visualise the entire skybox with its 6 sides laid out.

This skybox preview can also be used to set the psotion of the sun (or moon) in teh sky. Click in the skybox preview to set the position of the sun directly.

Extra Options

This option provides extra effects for the "ground plane", such as a checker board or an ocean simulation.

Custom provides a set of parameters to help the creation of a water surface with desired roughness level. All adjustments take effect immediately.

Custom, Rough Ocean and Calm Lake modes will trigger animated rendering, which means the CPU and GPU eill be constantly processing and rendering the animation when these modes are selected.

Shortcut Views (H/W Accelerated Mode Only)

Shortcut views can be accessed in three ways:

• Accessing the right-click menu where you can view all shortcut views clearly as a thumbnail. This doesn't provide an Overwrite/Remove option.

• Looking at the bottom left bar (numbers 1-9) where you can check if a shortcut view is assigned. This doesn't provide an Overwrite/Remove option.

• Pressing the number keys (1-9) for fastest access.

If you are using the hardware accelerated renderer, the Shortcut views (numbered 1 to 9) will be visible in the lower-left of the render view.

Click on any of the shortcut view numbers to store the current view as a shortcut view. A tiny thumbnail image of the stored view will be drawn underneath the number, in this case shortcut view 2.

If you change the view rotation or pan the view to a new position, you can at any time switch back to the stored view by clicking on the shortcut view number.

To overwrite the stored view with the current view, press [Ctrl] and click the shortcut view number.

The shortcut views are also available from the right-click menu, and work in the same way, but have larger thumbnails images.

Inuitive Camera/Flythrough Control

The context menu in Hardware Accelerated mode provides a convenient way to access the Render View functions that are only available in Hardware Accelerated mode. You can access these features by right-clicking in the Render View:

Fly Along

Besides the Circle Around operation, right-clicking in the scene also detects nearby Lines/Polylines/Arcs and Road Entities that could be used for a flythrough, and provides a Fly Along option as shown below.

A "quick path preview" will also be displayed when you hover over the Fly Along option. Note that Road Entities behave a bit differently from the other entities that can be used for Fly Along, particularly with the calculation of total flight time. The following table shows these differences:

Real-time Flythrough Control

While a fly-through is running, real-time controls are displayed onscreen to help adjust the speed, camera offset, and view direction on the fly:

The following table lists the controls available:

There are no real-time controls for the Circle Around function. You can pre-adjust the Circle Around time in the Render View Settings dialog.