Reference Guide
Reference Guide
Reference Guide
Reference Guide
Reference Guide
Reference Guide
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Consists of controls that are used to adjust rendering settings. The controls are duplicates of many of those in the Rendering Settings dialog box ( Settings menu > Rendering > General)
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Rendering Settings dialog box | |
When a 3D model is rendered, the model is divided into polygons, with curved surfaces being represented by a polygon mesh. Stroke Tolerance determines the size of these polygons, which directly affects the accuracy of curved surfaces displayed in the shaded image. This is most apparent at the edges of curved objects.
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Effect of Stroke Tolerance — large. | |
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Effect of Stroke Tolerance — small. | |
The Stroke Tolerance is the maximum distance (in pixels) a surface can deviate from the polygons used to render it. Stroke Tolerance can be from 0.001–1000.00, with smaller settings providing more accurate representation of curved surfaces, at the cost of longer rendering time. For most rendering, the default of 0.500 provides excellent results. For some images you may need to use a smaller setting.
When a design is rendered antialiased, in Constant , Smooth , or Phong render mode, the image is rendered in several passes. In each pass the image is shifted slightly in the X and Y directions. Each of the resulting images is averaged to create a single antialiased image. The number of passes in each direction is determined by the antialiasing grid. If set to 2, for example, the system will antialias on a 2×2 grid using 4 passes; if set to 3, it will use 9 passes. The higher the value used, the more passes will be taken, and the higher the quality of the image will be.
 | For ray tracing, antialiasing is controlled in the More Ray Tracer Settings dialog box. |
Determines the softness of shadows; a higher value produces softer shadows. Its value describes the number of adjacent pixels to look at in the shadow map:
0 — Very sharp, crisp shadows.
15 — Shadows with very soft edges.
Determines how close objects can be to cast shadows on each other, and is used to prevent surfaces from casting shadows on themselves. It is specified as a proportion of the maximum distance from the light to an element.
The default value .02 is usually sufficient to prevent self-shadowing. Large Shadow Tolerance values can cause inaccurate shadow generation.
| If the shadow tolerance is too large, objects may not cast shadows on other objects that are too close. If it is too small, the objects might shadow themselves, causing a rippled appearance across the surface. |
If on, surface color is extracted from the pattern image by interpolating between the two closest pixels. In most cases, this produces the best results, although it may be undesirable in certain instances.
If on, shadow maps are saved the first time that a design is rendered, resulting in reduced times for future rendering. Subsequent rendering of the design uses the saved shadow maps, rather than re-creating them.
Names for shadow map files are based on the order of the lights and the name of the design file. For the design file “test3d.dgn,” the shadow maps will be “test3d.l01”, “test3d.l02,” etc. (where l is for light).
If a light is moved using the controls in the Source Lighting settings box, making its shadow map invalid, the shadow map is recalculated automatically. The Source Lighting dialog box is opened by choosing Rendering > Source Lighting from the Settings menu.
If on, the Ignore Open Elements And Text setting restricts rendering processes to only those elements that include an area component: surfaces and all closed elements such as shapes, ellipses, and complex shapes. Conversely, all open elements, such as lines, arcs, text, and points, are not rendered (and therefore not displayed in rendered images).
Sets the distance at which fading begins — specified as a proportion of the distance from the front to the back clipping plane. For example, if set to 0.25, there is no fading in the nearest one-fourth of the view's volume.
The front and back clipping planes are set with the Set Display Depth or when setting up or adjusting the view camera with Camera > Set Up, Camera > Move Camera, or Camera > Move Target.
Sets the fog intensity at the Near Distance.
Sets the fog intensity at the back of the view.
Opens the Modify Fog Color dialog box, which is used to select a fog color. A fog color can be used to create a realistic atmospheric haze. The controls in the dialog box are analogous to those in the Modify Color dialog box.