Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
IMPROVING THE SMOOTHNESS OF CIRCLES AND ARCS
Here is an issue that readers are constantly asking me about. You may notice that at times, when
you're using the Render, Hide, or Shade tool, the edge of solids or region arcs appears segmented
rather than curved. This may be fine for producing layouts or backgrounds for hand-rendered draw-
ings, but for final prints, you want arcs and circles to appear as smooth curves. You can adjust the
accuracy of arcs in your hidden, rendered, or shaded views through a setting in the Application
Preferences dialog box.
You can modify the Smoothness For 3D Printing/Rendering setting in the Document Settings tab
of the Application Preferences dialog box to improve the smoothness of arcs. Its default value is 0.5,
but you can increase it to as high as 10 to smooth out faceted curves. In the facade.dwg model,
you can set Smoothness For 3D Printing/Rendering to 1.5 to render the archway in the entry as a
smooth arc instead of a series of flat segments. You can also adjust this setting by using the Facetres
system variable.
Controlling Render Quality
Once you've rendered your model, you may find that you need to make some changes to the
rendered image. You can always export the image to another program like Photoshop, to “dress
up” the image and adjust lighting and contrast. There are a few things you can do within
AutoCAD as well.
One feature you can use to improve the overall sharpness of your rendering is the
Renderquality setting. So far, the renderings of the building have been a bit jagged. You can cre-
ate a smoother image by typing
RENDERQUALITY
↵
5
↵. This sets the Renderquality setting to
its maximum value of 5. You can use a range from -3 to 5, with -3 being the lowest quality. With
Renderquality set to 5, you will see smoother edges and more detail in your renderings.
If your rendered image is too dark or you want to bump up the contrast, the Properties
Inspector palette offers the Brightness, Contrast, and Midtone settings under the Render category.
You can find these settings at the bottom of the Properties Inspector palette when you click the All
button. Make sure you do not have anything selected in your drawing before you click All.
Printing Your Renderings
When you've decided that your rendering is perfect, you can print a copy directly from
AutoCAD. Through a layout view, you can also put together presentations that include 2D floor
plans and elevations with your rendering on a single sheet. Alternatively, you can have several
renderings on one sheet.
Try the following to set up a layout view to render the 3D model in both a rendered view and
a hidden-line view:
1.
Click the Show Drawings And Layouts button in the Status Bar palette and then choose
Layout1.
2.
Click the viewport border to expose its grips, and then use a grip to make the viewport
smaller so it's about half the height of the Paper Space layout. Keep the height-to-width
proportions of the viewport as close to the original as possible.
