Rendering assemblies

Publication Number
spse01692
Rendering assemblies

Publication Number
spse01692
Proprietary and restricted rights notice

This software and related documentation are proprietary to Siemens Product

Lifecycle Management Software Inc.
© 2011 Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Siemens and the Siemens logo are registered trademarks of Siemens AG. Solid Edge
is a trademark or registered trademark of Siemens Product Lifecycle Management
Software Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries. All
other trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks belong to their respective
holders.

2 Rendering assemblies spse01692

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-1

Course Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-1

Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-1
Working with advanced rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-1
Perspective command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-21
Render Area command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-22
Render Scene command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-22
Activity: Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-23
Lesson review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-24
Answers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-24
Lesson summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-25

Activity: Rendering an assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-1

Step 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-2
Step 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-7
Step 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-18
Step 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-24
Activity summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A-26

spse01692 Rendering assemblies 3

Lesson

1 Introduction

Welcome to self paced training for Solid Edge. This course is designed to educate you
in the use of Solid Edge. The course is self-paced and contains instruction followed
by activities.

Solid Edge self-paced courses

• spse01510—Sketching

• spse01515—Constructing base features

• spse01520—Moving and rotating faces

• spse01525—Working with face relationships

• spse01530—Constructing treatment features

• spse01535—Constructing procedural features

• spse01536—Modeling synchronous and ordered features

• spse01540—Modeling assemblies

• spse01545—Creating detailed drawings

• spse01546—Sheet metal design

• spse01550—Practicing your skills with projects

• spse01560—Modeling a Part Using Surfaces

• spse01610—Solid Edge frame design

• spse01640—Assembly patterning

• spse01645—Assembly systems libraries

• spse01650—Working with large assemblies

• spse01655—Revising assemblies

• spse01660—Assembly reports

• spse01665—Replacing parts in an assembly

• spse01670—Designing in the context of an assembly

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Lesson 1 Introduction

• spse01675—Assembly features

• spse01680—Inspecting assemblies

• spse01685—Alternate assemblies

• spse01686—Adjustable parts and assemblies

• spse01690—Virtual components in assemblies

• spse01691—Exploding assemblies

• spse01692—Rendering assemblies

• spse01693—Animating assemblies

• spse01695—XpresRoute (tubing)

• spse01696—Creating a Wire Harness with Harness Design

• spse01424—Working with Solid Edge Embedded Client

Start with the tutorials

Self-paced training begins where tutorials end. Tutorials are the quickest way for
you to become familiar with the basics of using Solid Edge. If you do not have any
experience with Solid Edge, please start by working through the tutorials for basic
part modeling and editing before starting this self-paced training.

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Lesson

2 Course Overview

Course overview
The Explode-Render-Animate application within the Solid Edge assembly
environment is a tool for creating different types of presentations of Solid Edge
assemblies. Exploding an assembly allows you to control the movement, sequence
and grouping of parts and subassemblies. Rendering a view allows you to define
textures, lighting, shadows, backgrounds and other properties to create presentation
style images. Motors apply movement to under constrained parts in an assembly
which can be animated. Using animation, you can combine previously created
exploding sequences and custom camera movement to create animation. Each frame
of the animation can be rendered to create presentation quality animations.
Once you complete the activities in this course, you will be able to:
• Assign material properties and textures to parts and subassemblies.

• Set viewing properties to change lighting, backgrounds, shadows, reflections,

refractions and perspectives.

• Edit material properties to create different results in the final rendering.

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Lesson

3 Rendering

Limited rendering is available in Solid Edge assembly using the settings in the View
command. Advanced rendering in assembly is covered here and is contained in the
Explode-Render-Animate environment.

Working with advanced rendering

The advanced rendering capabilities in Solid Edge are an extension of the

Explode-Render-Animate application. This functionality can enhance the quality
of images used in documents such as customer presentations or marketing and
sales literature.
With the advanced rendering capability, you have a single view style called
presentation view style that contains all of your rendering settings.

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Lesson 3 Rendering

A library of predefined entities such as materials, backgrounds, render modes, and

light studios is available. You can customize the library with user-defined settings,
but you cannot edit, delete, or modify the contents of the original library. This
ensures protection for the original data stored in the library. Any custom settings
you add to the library are stored in a separate file. You can have multiple libraries.
The advanced rendering capability uses the Solid Edge display for view
manipulations. It supports part visibility and will only render what is on the screen.
The Sharpen command is available when working with advanced rendering to allow
you to make your graphics crisp and clear. Sharpening the display of the model will
increase the quality of the rendering.

Supported advanced rendering entities

Advanced rendering provides rendering support for these entities:
• Backgrounds

• Foregrounds

• Materials

• Environments

• Lighting Studios

• Render Mode

• Scenery

• Schemes

Activating advanced rendering

Advanced rendering is activated automatically when you click the Render Scene and
Render Area buttons when you have a Solid Edge Classic license. When you click
these commands, two new tabs are added to PathFinder automatically.
• The Session Entities tab displays the name of the active assembly, along with a
tree structure that shows you the entities that are applied to the assembly. You
can right-click an entity to display a shortcut menu to:
– Edit the properties of an entity as the basis for creating a new entity.

– Detach (remove) a material that you have applied to the model.

– Cut, copy, and paste an entity.

– Rename an entity you created.

• The Predefined Archives tab displays a list of folders that contain predefined
entities, such as backgrounds, foregrounds, and materials. You can right-click an
entity to display a shortcut menu to:
– Create a new archive folder or advanced rendering entity.

– Apply an entity to the model.

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 Rendering

– Cut, copy, and paste an entity.

– Rename an entity you created.

– A toolbar on the Predefined Archives page contains commands used to

create, save, open, close, and import customized entities in user-defined
archive folders.

Any material, color, background, light, or scene that you want to customize needs to
be applied to the assembly first, and then modified within the Session Entities tab to
look the way you want it to. When you have adjusted the parameters of an entity so
that it looks good on the model, you then copy the entity from the Session Entities
page to a user-defined entity archive on the Predefined Archives page on PathFinder.

Editing advanced rendering entities

You can use the <Entity> Editor dialog box to edit the advanced rendering entity
settings. To display the dialog box, click the Sessions Entity tab on PathFinder.
Right-click the entity you want to edit. For example, if you want to change the
material settings for the rendering, right click Materials. On the shortcut menu,
click Edit Definition.
The options on the dialog box change based on the shader you select. A shader is
designed to imitate a real-world look for things such as material, light, and rendering
mode. Every component in advanced rendering is based on a shader, and each shader
has multiple options that allow you to control the look and feel of the renderings.

Applying advanced rendering entities

There are two ways to apply an advanced rendering entity.
• You can select the entity from the library in the Predefined Archives tab and
drag it onto the model in the graphics window.

• You can first select a model part in the graphics window, then right-click an
entity in the Predefined Archives tab and choose Apply To Selected on its
shortcut menu.

After applying the entity, you can use the Render Scene or Render Area command to
see what the change looks like in the model.

Saving an advanced rendered image

You can use the Save As command to save a rendered image.

Guidelines for saving advanced rendered images

When saving images, you should follow these guidelines.
• To calculate the memory requirements for the image, multiply the image size (in
pixels) * 4 (true color). For example, for an image 500 x 500 pixels, the memory
requirements are 10 MB (500 x 500 x 4).

• To calculate the file size for the image, multiply the image size * 3 (true color).

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Lesson 3 Rendering

• On the Image Options form, set the Alternate View Style to Presentation View
Style.

Backgrounds
Backgrounds are a simple way of enhancing the screen area behind a model. They
appear in reflective surfaces so they can impact a model’s appearance and add
context to the model’s image.

Note
Backgrounds in advanced rendering inherit the background in Assembly.

Advanced rendering supports the following background shaders.

• Graduated
A smooth linear transition from one color to another. In other words, there is a
gradual change in background colors as you go from the top to the bottom.

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 Rendering

• Image

• Plain

• None

To learn how to stretch a background image so that it fills the window, see the Help
topic, Set a Background Image in Explode-Render-Animate.

Foregrounds
Foregrounds allow you to add additional view effects that help simulate various
atmospheric effects such as fog. You can add foregrounds from the library or you can
edit the view settings directly.

Note
Foregrounds in advanced rendering do not inherit any assembly settings.

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Lesson 3 Rendering

Advanced rendering supports the following foreground shaders.

• Depth Cue
Depth Cue fades an image to a particular color to portray a sense of depth in
the image.

• Fog

• None

Materials
Advanced rendering includes a wide range of materials to simulate such things
as wood, plastic, marble, and metal. It also supports advanced surface effects for
texture maps and bump maps.

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 Rendering

The material definition is inherited from the style definition in the assembly. For
example, a part with a green style in the Assembly environment will initially
be green material in advanced rendering. The materials applied to a model in
advanced rendering are available only when using the Render Scene and Render
Area commands in the Explode-Render-Animate application. For example, if you
apply a red material to a green part, the part will still be green when you are not
using these commands.
You can apply a material to a single or multiple occurrences of parts. For example,
suppose you have several parts with a material definition of blue. If you change the
material definition to dark blue, all parts with blue material are affected.
Advanced rendering supports several properties and allows you to set the following
settings:
• Color

• Reflectance

• Transparency

• Displacement

• Texture space

When working in Explode-Render-Animate, you can modify the existing materials

to create different colors and properties. Once that is done, you can create a new
archive (.lwa file) for the modified entities, so you can apply them to different
projects whenever you want.

Color support
You can define colors as plain colors, patterns such as wood, granite, and marble,
or a textured map based on a bitmap image. The color settings support shaders
such as plain, woods, marble, and wrapped images.

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Lesson 3 Rendering

Reflectance support

Reflectance properties affect the way light interacts with the materials. You can
use these properties to apply such effects as:

• Mirror reflectance

• Plastic reflectance

• Glass reflectance

• Metal reflectance

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 Rendering

The reflectance settings support shaders such as chrome 2D, conductor,

glass, matte, metal, and mirror. Some of the most common options for these
shaders include:

– Specular factor
The specular factor is the amount of highlight or light reflected from a
triangle where its normal matches the light vector.
With a low specular factor, the appearance of the blue plastic seems to
be dull,

compared to a high specular factor that produces a shiner, almost

mirror-like effect.

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Lesson 3 Rendering

– Diffuse factor
The diffuse factor is the amount of light reflected from triangles where
the light is approximately 45 degrees from the light ray.
A low diffuse factor produces a dark image,

compared to a high diffuse factor.

– Mirror factor

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Transparency support

Transparency is the amount of coverage by a color filter to simulate glass or

some plastic materials. The values range from 0 for transparent to 1 for opaque.
The transparency settings support shaders such as none, glow, plain, and
wrapped image.
You can apply simple transparency to a model,

or combine it with properties such as reflectance, you can produce a more

accurate looking image.

Displacement support

Surface displacement defines surface deformations by applying such effects as

simple surface roughness, patterns such as leather and dimples, or tread plates.
The displacement settings support such shaders as none, casting, leather, rough,
wrapped displacements.

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Lesson 3 Rendering

Wrapped displacement shaders simulate materials with an imprinted pattern.

Some of the common wrapped displacement shaders include:
• Wrapped tread plate
Wrapped tread plates imitates slip resistant shaped tread pattern. Also
known as diamond plate, this material is commonly used for outdoor steps.

• Wrapped knurl
Wrapped knurl imitates handgrips and is a common finish for barbell
handgrips.

• Wrapped dimple
Wrapped dimple simulates a slip resistant bubble-shaped pattern. Also
known as diamond plate, this material is commonly used for outdoor steps.

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• Wrapped leather
Wrapped leather imitates leather and is commonly used for camera bodies,
chairs, and desk ground.

You can use the displacement settings to define a bump map based on bitmap
images. The direction of the light source determines the surface texture of the
rendering. Lighter areas are rendered as raised portions of the surface and
darker areas are rendered as depressions in the surface. A gradient render is
done between the light and dark areas.

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Lesson 3 Rendering

You can use texture mapping to define how a texture is wrapped onto the surface.

Light studios
A light studio is the top-level container for all lights used in a model. It provides
a fast and simple way to change the entire light scheme. You can change such
things as:
• Shadows

• Intensity

• Shadow type
Shadows can be soft or hard. Soft shadows are gradually diffused to create a
more realistic lighting effect. Hard shadows can be colored and are useful for
such effects as stained glass.

• Shadow resolution

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 Rendering

Each light in the light studio has its own set of attributes, such as light type and
color. These attributes are defined by a light shader.
You can quickly turn light sources on and off by setting or clearing the check box
displayed adjacent to each light in the Light Studio branch of the Session Entity
tree on the EdgeBar tool.
Lighting is very important to rendering because it gives a sense of depth to the scene
and highlights the shiny surfaces. Lighting supports the following shaders:
• Ambient light

• Point light

• Spot light

• Distant light

• Sun

• Sky

• More

These shaders contain options that affect the light. Some of the most common
options include color, intensity, and location.
Ambient light illuminates all surfaces regardless of orientation. This is useful for
illuminating the scene that is not illuminated by other light sources.

Point light emits light equally in all directions from a point specified by an X, Y, and
Z definition. This type of light is useful when lighting enclosed spaces or simulating
the effect of a light bulb.

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Lesson 3 Rendering

Spot light emits light from a single point and is contained by a cone. The starting
and ending positions of a light are specified by X, Y, and Z definitions. This type of
light is useful for focusing attention on the model or part of the model.

Distant light emits light parallel to a specific point as if is from a very distant source.
Solid Edge uses distant lights, which are used for general lighting.

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 Rendering

To learn how to use the lighting controls, see the Help topic, Edit Light Entity
Properties for Advanced Rendering.

Render mode
Advanced rendering provides rendering settings that allow you to control such
things as reflections and the amount of light that bounces between objects. Advanced
rendering does not inherit any rendering settings from the Assembly environment.
Any changes you make to the rendering settings in advanced rendering do not
change in Assembly.
Advanced rendering supports two classes of rendering:
• Photorealistic

• Artistic

Each render mode uses a shader to produce special effects and each shader includes
a variety of options. The available options differ depending on the shader you select.
Photorealistic rendering supports ray tracing to show reflections and refractions.
Photorealistic rendering supports such shader options as anti-aliasing, transparency,
and reflections.
• Ray tracing—plots a path of imaginary rays from the observer’s eye through each
pixel on the screen, back to the 3D environment. These rays are tracked as they
bounce from one object to another to the light source.

• Anti-aliasing—a method of displaying elements on a low resolution device to

make the object appear smoother. You can control the level of anti-aliasing. The
more anti-aliasing you apply, the smoother the display will be, but it will also
take longer to process.

You can choose from a variety of artistic rendering modes to make a 3D model look
as if it was hand-drawn, painted, a mosaic, among others.

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Lesson 3 Rendering

Scenery
Scenery allows you to enhance your renderings by adding such affects as tiled floors
or water.

Advanced rendering supports the following types of scenes.

• Circular bases

• Panoramas

• Rooms

• Square bases

• None

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Schemes
Schemes allow you to enhance your renderings by adding background images and
lighting settings listed below:
• 2D Schemes (HDR) with 2d backgrounds and lighting.

• 3D Schemes (HDR) with 360 backgrounds and lighting. The 3D schemes rotate
relative to the view.
Note
These 3D scenes are not displayed during real time rotations. The scene
will need to be rendered again to see the scene.

• Four levels of quality are provided. These are:

– High Quality HDR

– Medium Quality HDR

– Draft HDR

– Ambient Occlusion (AO)

• Schemes:
– Interior Schemes

– Exterior Schemes

– Studios

– 2D Abstract Backgrounds and Reflections

– 2D Exterior Back plates

– 2D Interior Back plates

Examples:

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Lesson 3 Rendering

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Note
Digital background images can be substituted by editing the definition of a
scheme in the session entities tab of pathfinder.

Perspective command
Applies perspective to (A) or removes perspective from (B) the view for the active
window.

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Lesson 3 Rendering

You can quickly add or remove a perspective override using this command, but
cannot change the perspective angle with this command.

Render Area command

Renders a fenced area.
Depending on the type of Solid Edge license you have, you may have advanced
rendering capabilities available to you in the Explode-Render-Animate application
in the Assembly environment. For example, if you have a Solid Edge Classic license,
advanced rendering is available. If you have a Foundation license, advanced
rendering is not available.

Render Scene command

Renders the active window.
Depending on the type of Solid Edge license you have, you may have advanced
rendering capabilities available to you in the Explode-Render-Animate application
in the Assembly environment. For example, if you have a Solid Edge Classic license,
advanced rendering is available. If you have a Foundation licence, advanced
rendering is not available.

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Activity: Rendering

Activity objectives

You will be working in the context of an assembly named render.asm. In this activity
you will:

• Set parameters for changing backgrounds, foregrounds, light sources, and

perspectives to control the display of a Solid Edge assembly.

• Enter the assembly application Explode-Render-Animate and assign materials

and rendering properties to a Solid Edge assembly.

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Lesson 3 Rendering

• Edit parameters assigned from the predefined archive and better control the
image display of rendered scene.

• Generate presentation quality images of a Solid Edge assembly using the

rendering tools in the Explode-Render-Animate application.

Turn to appendix A for the Activity: Rendering an assembly.

Lesson review
Answer the following questions:
1. What makes the session entities tab appear in pathfinder?

2. How do you apply a texture to a face?

3. What is the difference between the session entities tab and the predefined
archives tab?

4. How do you create a high quality rendered image?

Answers
1. What makes the session entities tab appear in pathfinder?
In the ERA environment, the session entities tab appears after a scene is
rendered.

2. How do you apply a texture to a face?

Within the part or sheet metal file where the face exists, apply a face style that
contains a texture image. Textures must be turned on in the view format dialog
box.

3. What is the difference between the session entities tab and the predefined
archives tab?
Predefined archives contain settings for backgrounds, light sources, scenery and
so forth. They cannot be changed, however when a setting is used, it populates
the session entities tab in pathfinder. The settings can be edited as a session
entity.

4. How do you create a high quality rendered image?

Settings that contribute to high quality rendered images are:

• In the format view dialog box, set the anti-alias level to high.

• In the style group, set the sharpness to the highest setting.

• From the predefined archives, drag Render Mode>Photorealistic>High

quality into the scene

• When saving the image, click options and set the alternate view style to
be presentation view style.

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Note
These parameters affect system performance.

Lesson summary
In this lesson you learned how to generate presentation quality images of a Solid
Edge assembly. In the activity, the following topics were covered:
• Creating and editing backgrounds for rendered scenes.

• Creating and editing light sources for rendered scenes.

• Assigning predefined material textures to parts within an assembly.

• Editing the material properties to give the desired result in the rendered scene.

• Placing and then editing predefined scenery to enhance the rendered scene.

• Saving presentation quality JPEG images once the desired rendering options
have been finalized.

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 A Activity: Rendering an assembly

Step 1
In the following steps, you will be working in the context of an assembly document
render.asm. Before entering the Explode-Render-Animate application, you will
assign properties to some parts and change some viewing parameters within
the Solid Edge Assembly environment. These settings will carry over into the
Explode-Render-Animate application and will be available there unless they are
overridden by another parameter in that application.
You will make the glass face clear by setting the face style.
▸ Open the assembly render.asm and activate all the parts in the assembly.

spse01692 Rendering assemblies A-1

A Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ In PathFinder, right-click housing.asm, and then click Edit.

▸ In PathFinder, right-click glass.par, and then click Edit.

▸ On the ribbon, choose View tab→Style group→Part Painter.

▸ On the Part Painter command bar, set the Style to White (glass) and the Select
method to Any.

▸ In the graphics window, select the revolved protrusion to set the face style.

▸ On the command bar, click the Close button.

▸ On the ribbon, click the Close and Return button to return to housing.asm.

▸ On the ribbon, click the Close and Return button to return to render.asm.

Step 2
The numbers for the clock face have been created and stored in a TIFF format
image. You will now assign this image to the clock face as a texture. To do this,
you will create a new face style based on the properties of an existing face style.
You will then modify the face style by assigning the TIFF image as a texture and
then orienting it appropriately.

▸ In PathFinder, right-click SE_face.par, and then click Edit.

▸ On the ribbon, choose View tab→Show group→Hide Previous Level to turn

off the display of the assembly (if it is visible).

▸ Choose View tab→Style group→View Overrides .

▸ Set the Render mode to Smooth with VHL Overlay.

▸ Turn on Textures, then click OK.

▸ Choose View tab→Style group→Styles .

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 Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ Set the Style type to Faces Styles.

▸ From the Styles list, select White (glass).

▸ Click New.

▸ In the Name field, type Clockface, but do not press Enter.

Note
When you press Enter, the new style Clockface is created and you return
to the Faces Style menu. To make further changes to the style Clockface,
you need to select Clockface, and then click Modify.

▸ Click the Texture tab.

▸ Browse for the texture file clockface.tif, and click Open.

▸ Click OK to close the New Faces Style dialog box, and then click Close to dismiss
the Style dialog box.

▸ On the ribbon, choose View tab→Style group→Part Painter .

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A Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ Set the Style to Clockface and the Select method to Face.

▸ Select the front face of the clock, and then click the Close button on the command
bar.

Note
You will edit the style Clockface to correct the problems with the texture.

▸ Choose View tab→Style group→Styles .

▸ Select Faces Style.

▸ Select Clockface, and then click Modify.

▸ Click the Texture tab, and modify the Rotation angle to 270, such that the
orientation of the clock face is correct.

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 Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ Click the Appearance tab. Set the values as shown. Click OK, and then click
Apply.
• Shininess: 0.25

• Reflectivity: 0.20

• Opacity: 1.0

Note
Create the face style in the template and it will be available for future
geometry created with that template.

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A Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ Choose View tab→Show group→Hide Previous Level to display the

assembly again.

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 Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ On the ribbon, click Close and Return to return to render.asm. Save the assembly.

Step 3
You will now enter the Explode-Render-Animate application and apply settings to
create your desired rendered images.

▸ Choose Tools tab→Environs group→ERA .

▸ Choose Home tab→Render group→Render Setup .

▸ In the Render Setup dialog box, select all of the Automatic Render Options and
Use Progressive Rendering, and then click OK.

▸ In PathFinder, click the Session Entities tab .

Note
The Session Entities tab in PathFinder contains rendering settings
and parameters that have been defined up to this point in time. These
parameters can be edited and the values modified. You will be adding
new values from the Predefined Archives. Values in Predefined Archives
cannot be changed, but once used, the entry in the Session Entities tab
can be renamed and modified.

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A Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ In PathFinder, click the Predefined Archives tab .

Note
To use a setting in the Predefined Archives, you will drag the setting
into the rendered scene. To set geometry-specific settings, such as
material textures, you will drag the material onto the desired part. For
view-specific settings, such as backgrounds and lighting, you will drag the
setting anywhere into the rendered scene.

▸ Drag Backgrounds→Graduated→Green into the rendered scene.

Note
Because you set the rendering options to automatically render upon a
background change, the scene is automatically rendered. When this
parameter is turned off, you need to manually render the scene by clicking
the Scene command.

▸ To modify the parameter you just set, in PathFinder, click the Session Entities

tab .

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 Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ In PathFinder, right-click Background, and then click Edit Definition.

▸ In the Background Editor, set the Bottom Color to be the color shown, and click
OK. Click OK to exit the Background Editor.

▸ In PathFinder, click the Predefined Archives tab.

▸ Drag Render Modes→Photorealistic→Photorealistic, high quality into the

rendered scene.

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▸ Drag Light Studios→High-Contrast→Left spot with back into the rendered

scene.

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 Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ Now modify the parameter you just set. In PathFinder, click the Session Entities
tab.

▸ To see the effect of the left spot on the rendered scene, turn off the Left Spot, and
then click the Home tab→Render group→Scene command.

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A Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ Turn on the Left Spot again, and then click the Scene command.

▸ Modify the Left Spot definition. Right-click Left Spot, and then click Edit
Definition.

▸ In the Light Editor dialog box, set the cone angle to 40o.

▸ Click the Placement tab. Click the Front View button, and drag the handles so
that the front looks approximately like the view below.

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 Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ Now select the Top View button and drag the handles of the cone to the
approximate position shown.

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▸ Select the Right View button and drag the handles of the cone to the approximate
position shown. Check the top, front and right views. Changes made in one view
could move the viewing cone in another. It may take you several iterations to
achieve the desired results.

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 Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ Click OK to exit the Light Editor dialog box, and return to the rendered scene.

▸ Add a new light source. In PathFinder, right-click Lighting Studio and click Add.

▸ Right-click New Spot Light, and then click Edit Definition.

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▸ On the Placement tab, set the viewing cone as shown for the top, front and right
buttons.

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 Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ Click OK to exit the Light Editor dialog box and return to the rendered scene.

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Step 4
You will now create presentation quality images.
▸ On the view tab, in the style group, click the perspective command.

▸ On the view tab, in the style group, click the view overrides command.

▸ On the view overrides dialog box, set the perspective to Wide (35mm).

▸ In PathFinder, click the Predefined Archives tab.

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 Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ Drag Scenery→3D backgrounds→Interior — Lobby into the rendered scene.

Note
The scene is now in the session entities. By editing the session entity, different
digital images can be substituted for the current images.

▸ In PathFinder, click the Predefined Archives tab .

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▸ Drag Materials→Wood→Mahogany→Polished mahogany onto the part case.par.

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▸ Drag Polished mahogany onto the part backplate.par.

▸ Now assign a different wood to the same two parts. Drag

Materials→Wood→Japanese Oak→Polished Japanese oak onto the
part case.par.

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A Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ Drag Polished Japanese oak onto the part backplate.par.

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▸ Drag Materials→Glass→Clear (glass) onto the part glass.par.

▸ Now modify the parameters you just set. In PathFinder, click the Session
Entities tab.

▸ Modify the properties on Polished Japanese oak and reapply it to the parts.
Right-click the material Polished Japanese oak and click Edit Definition.

▸ Change the trunk direction to 0, 1, 0.

▸ Now modify the glass parameters to allow more light to pass through. On the
Sessions Entities tab, right-click the material Clear (Glass), and then click Edit
Definition.

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▸ In the Material Editor dialog box, click the Reflectance tab and set the
transmission factor to 1.30. Click OK to dismiss the dialog box.

Step 5
You will now replace the tread plate scene with textures created in the Draft
Environment. The textures are JPEG format images that have been assigned to
faces of parts in the same manner as the numbers you previously placed on the
clock. Since you know how to do this, there is no need to for you to do those steps. To
see the textures, you will turn off the tread plate and show the textured parts and
then render and save the final image.
▸ On the view tab, in the style group, click the perspective command. This turns
the perspective display off.

▸ In PathFinder, click the Predefined Archives tab .

▸ Drag Scenery→No Scenery into the rendered scene.

▸ The parts wall1.par, wall2.par and wall3.par are hidden. Find them in Assembly
PathFinder and show them.

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▸ Render the scene.

▸ Now save the rendered view as a presentation quality image. Click the
Application button and then choose Save As→Save As Image. Set the file
type to JPEG and then click the Options button. Set the alternate view style
to Presentation View Style. Set the resolution to 300 DPI. Set the units to
Pixels. Click OK and then save the file as Japanese Oak Clock.jpg in the folder
containing the documents for this activity.
Note
From the Predefined Archives, you have taken rendering parameters and
materials and applied them to a rendered scene. There are many combinations
and modifications that can be made to enhance the rendered scene that
were not covered. The workflow for using the predefined parameters and
then modifying them is the same as covered in this activity. You may want
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A Activity: Rendering an assembly

▸ Click the Application button, and then click Save.

▸ Click Close ERA to exit the Explode-Render-Animate application.

▸ Save and close the assembly. This completes this activity.

Activity summary
In this activity you learned how to generate presentation quality images of a Solid
Edge assembly. In the activity, the following topics were covered:
• Creating and editing backgrounds for rendered scenes.

• Creating and editing light sources for rendered scenes.

• Assigning predefined material textures to parts within an assembly.

• Editing the material properties to give the desired result in the rendered scene.

• Placing and then editing predefined scenery to enhance the rendered scene.

• Saving presentation quality JPEG images once the desired rendering options
have been finalized.

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