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Table of Contents
Table of Contents............................................................................................................................i
solidThinking Environment...........................................................................................................1
Modeling Views ..............................................................................................................................5
Console .........................................................................................................................................13
Selecting Objects .........................................................................................................................15
Working Modes ............................................................................................................................19
World Browser .............................................................................................................................25
Construction Tree ........................................................................................................................33
Transformations...........................................................................................................................43
Construction Aids ........................................................................................................................53
Preferences ..................................................................................................................................59
Grids..............................................................................................................................................61
Curves ...........................................................................................................................................65
Combine and Multi-Combine ......................................................................................................77
Mirror.............................................................................................................................................81
Surfaces ........................................................................................................................................85
Extrude..........................................................................................................................................93
Skin ...............................................................................................................................................97
Loft and Pipe ..............................................................................................................................105
Birail ............................................................................................................................................113
Multisweep..................................................................................................................................117
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Lathe ...........................................................................................................................................121 RadialSweep ...............................................................................................................................127 Coons, 3Sides, and Curves Network .......................................................................................131 Fillpath and Surface from Curves ............................................................................................137 Blend Surfaces ...........................................................................................................................141 Trim and Trim Solid ...................................................................................................................145 Intersection, Make Manifold and Boolean Operations ...........................................................153 Round and Round 8.0 ................................................................................................................161 Face Extract ...............................................................................................................................167 The Shading Panel .....................................................................................................................171 Lights ..........................................................................................................................................179 Global Illumination.....................................................................................................................197 Materials .....................................................................................................................................201 Backgrounds ..............................................................................................................................219
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Chapter 1
solidThinking Environment
solidThinking Interface Overview
To better understand the application, you need to familiarize yourself with the solidThinking user interface. This will allow you to keep the number of commands required to perform operations to a minimum. The main elements of the solidThinking interface are shown in the image below.
Across the top of the screen is the Application title bar. This area indicates that the solidThinking application is the active application and provides the name of the current scene you have open.
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Below the Application title bar (or above it, as in the Mac OS X version) are pull-down menus. These menus provide access to the tools, settings, interface elements, and other parts of solidThinking. Most of the menu options are also accessible thru keyboard shortcuts and/or on-screen icons. Along the left side of the default interface arrangement is the Modeling toolbar. The icons for most of the solidThinking tools are located here. These tools are also accessible through the Tools menu. You can scroll through the icons by clicking and dragging anywhere in the palette with the rightmouse button on Windows or clicking and dragging while pressing the Command key on a Mac. You can also use the mouse wheel to scroll through the palette. To see fewer icons in the Modeling toolbar, you can collapse each tabbed section, such as Transform or Curves, by double-clicking the Section Title tab. The effect of this action is shown below:
In some cases, the icon for a tool has a small arrow in the lower, right corner. These arrows indicate that many related tool icons are stacked beneath the icon that is visible. You can access these icons by clicking-and-holding the left mouse button on the top icon.
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A fly-out panel is displayed with the stacked icons visible and ready to select. This fly-out remains visible until you select a tool icon or move the mouse away. You do not have to hold the mouse button down the entire time the fly-out is visible. Tool-tips are provided for each icon in the solidThinking interface. These provide the title of the tool or icon in a floating, yellow box beneath your cursor. Tool-tips are automatically displayed if you simply hover, or hold without clicking, the mouse cursor above the icon for one second. This also works inside the fly-out icon menus. You can float or dock these panels by picking and dragging their borders according to your preferences. When floating, a toolbar displays its name and a close button in the title bar. If you hide all panels, operations can still be performed by using the menu commands. With this layout, modeling views have the maximum space possible. Several floating panels are used in different phases of a working session. Learning the keyboard shortcuts allows you to quickly display or hide panels, thus improving your workflow. You can find the keyboard shortcuts in the solidThinking on-line help. You can also choose different themes to change the solidThinking user interface. From the Help menu, select Preferences to open the Preferences panel (for Mac users, select the Info > Preferences command). From the General tab, locate the User Interface section and select a different theme from the Theme drop-down menu.
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Chapter 2
Modeling Views
Exercise 2.1: Orthographic Views
Purpose
This exercise illustrates how to use orthographic views in solidThinking.
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Step 5: Zoom in the Perspective view using the Dolly and F.O.V. icon together
1. Click and drag the Dolly/F.O.V. icons up and down to change your perspective view. This function combines Dolly and F.O.V. 2. It is important not to confuse the Dolly with the F.O.V. function.
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1. Click the W (Wireframe) icon to represent all objects in your scene in wireframe mode. 2. Click the S (Shaded) icon to represent the shape of the objects and how lights illuminate the scene. The shading color is not the color of the object. The shading color depends on the layer color. Changing the layer color changes the shading color. To get more shading colors in your scene, you can create more layers and different colors for each layer. 3. Click the C (Combined) icon to represent the shape color of the object in both wireframe and shaded mode. 4. Click the T (Textured) icons to represent the material color and texture assigned to your objects. Also, the environment map (HDRI images) will be visible only in the Perspective views. By default, all objects are white. The Textured mode representation does not exactly fit the final effect; it aims to give you an idea of what to expect. The Textured mode requires the most time to refresh the display, but it can be very useful for previewing your scene before starting the rendering session. Not all materials, such as procedural materials and decal shaders, can be displayed in Textured mode. 5. Click the E (Environment) icons to apply an environment map to your scene. The environment map is reflected on all models. You can select a different map to get a new result. Additional maps can be added to the EnvMaps folder of your solidThinking application.
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Low Quality
Medium Quality
High Quality
1. Open a complex scene. 2. From the View menu, select Detail. From the View Detail dialog, click Low.
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Wireframe resolution: 4
Wireframe resolution: 20
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3. Enable the Transparent surfaces check box. The entire scene in the Shaded view mode looks transparent. The level of detail you can reach without compromising the redraw performance depends on your hardware configuration and your video card. You should avoid increasing the level of detail too much if your hardware is not powerful enough. Moreover, changing the visual representation of your model does not affect its geometry in any way.
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Chapter 3
Console
Exercise 3.1: Interacting with the Active Command
Purpose
This exercise illustrates how to interact with active tools using the Console. You can find the Console at the top of the workspace, near the pull-down menus.
Any parameter requiring numerical input can either be set through the keyboard or specified by working interactively in any view with the mouse. When you enter XYZ coordinates, values can be separated by a comma (1,1,1). However, they cannot be separated by a dot, as a dot is used for decimals. The spacebar cannot be used as it will end an operation.
Step 2: Escape the Console prompts if you select the wrong tool
1. Click Circle or any other tool. 2. To escape the Console prompts, press the ESC key to cancel the tool. The Console closes and the circle is cancelled.
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Click or double-click inside the Console. With the right-mouse, click in any view. As you can see, the Console is active and the value is highlighted.
6. Press ENTER to confirm the default radius or press 2 to change the radius value and press ENTER.
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Chapter 4
Selecting Objects
By default, when you start solidThinking, the Select Objects mode is active. As a result, you do not need to activate a working mode to select or apply transformations to objects.
For multiple selections, pick objects while holding down the CTRL key. The CTRL key can be used to deselect an object. An object can also be selected within the hierarchy browser by simply clicking on its icon.
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2. Picking a new point automatically deselects any previously selected point. Picking can be performed in any view, 3D view included. 3. To represent the status of a point, solidThinking uses the following colors: Blue - Point can be selected. Yellow - Point is selected. When you apply a transformation to some selected points, these are displayed in blue, but in a smaller size. Light Green - Point is not selectable and is visualized (in a smaller size) to enable snap to point. 4. For multiple selections, pick points while holding down the CTRL key. To choose a range of points, from the currently selected point to the clicked point, hold down the SHIFT key. Hold down the mouse button and drag in the view to select any point included in a selection box. To force a selection box, even if you are over a control point or another hotSpot (thus avoiding to activate a translation), hold down CTRL + SHIFT and drag with the mouse.
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When you are in Group mode, you cannot translate an object or a group by clicking and dragging in the view. It is still possible to apply any transformation by activating the appropriate tool. A group can also be selected within the hierarchy browser by simply selecting it.
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Chapter 5
Working Modes
By default, when you start solidThinking, the Select Objects mode is active so you do not need to activate any working mode or apply transformations to objects. Important Note: Double-clicking directly on an object will cycle to the next work mode.
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Note
When you drag an object, you can see the distance in the Modeling Tool panel. Even if you can translate items by picking and dragging, it is better to use the Translate command instead. Using Translate avoids moving unintentionally coincident objects. When you use Translate to move an object, do not move the Pivot hotSpot (the yellow point) unless you need to define a different origin.
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3. On the Modeling Tool panel, change the radius by moving the slider or by typing the value in the Radius data field and pressing ENTER.
Otherwise, you must switch to Select Objects mode or double click in empty space. When you switch to Edit Parameters mode, not all objects display hotSpots. For example, if you select a combined object and switch to Edit Parameters mode, no hotSpots are displayed. In this case, the only way to modify objects is to go back to the Construction History and modify the original objects. To learn more about Construction History, see Chapter 7. Moreover, you cannot translate, rotate, or scale objects if Edit Parameters or Edit Points mode is active. In the Edit modes, you can translate, rotate or scale points. To learn more about translating, rotating, or scaling points in Edit modes, see Chapter 8.
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Parameter and point editing allows you to modify the position of the objects control points (for a NURBS primitive) or vertices (for a PolyMesh), even if the object is the result of a Construction Tree. To enable point editing, click Edit Points mode or use the ALT + spacebar shortcut.
You cannot delete or add points when in Edit Points mode. When in Edit Points mode, the Multi Edit panel is automatically invoked. Transformations can be applied using the standard transformation modeling tools: translate, rotate and scale. The Multi Edit modeling tool panel contains two buttons to remove the editing from the currently selected points (Un-edit selected) and from all points of the currently selected objects (Un-edit all). Important note: When you edit points of primitives or objects that are involved in a construction history you must switch to Edit Parameters mode. Otherwise, when you try to edit an object, you will not be able to modify interactively or adjust parameters in the Modeling Tool panel.
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Chapter 6
World Browser
The World Browser allows you to view and organize objects in your scene. You can navigate in your scene using the World or Layers.
It is important not to confuse the World Browser with the Construction History. The World Browser allows you to view all objects in your scene. The Construction History allows you to view and navigate the construction history of the selected object.
You can float or doc the World Browser panel by picking and dragging its upper border and positioning it anywhere on the screen. You can also resize your World Browser to obtain more space while you are organizing your scene.
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3. Drag the World Browser beside the Modeling Tool Panel to add more space.
4. Hide the Construction History to add more space to the World Browser.
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2. Click the Hidden in- interactive views icon. 3. Click in an empty area to deselect it. When you hide an object, solidThinking hides it from rendering also. When you use one of the operations above, the status of the object changes. Also, its icon in the World Browser changes. This helps you to individualize the object easily.
Visible objects
Hidden object
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This pull-down menu allows you to decide which kind of information you want displayed in the World Browser. If you select Picking/B.Box, the World Browser displays only the icons of objects that are not selectable or that use a bounding-box display. If you select Visibility, the World Browser displays only the icons of objects that are not visible in the interactive views or in the rendering. If you select Shadows, the World Browser displays only the icons of objects that do not receive or cast shadows. From the World Browser, select Surf #4. Click the Picking disabled icon again to enable it.
When you choose another Filter status, remember to switch it to Visibility. Visibility is the default Filter status.
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Chapter 7
Construction Tree
The solidThinking Construction Tree amplifies the power of all of the tools. You can manipulate both the parameters and the points of all objects freely. It allows you to replace source objects within the Construction Tree with immediate reconstruction. It is also possible to collapse the Construction Tree, so is removing the history from an object. See the solidThinking Users Guide for more details on the Construction History.
It is important not to confuse the World Browser with the Construction History. The World Browser allows you to view all objects in your scene. The Construction Tree allows to view and to navigate only the Construction History of the selected object.
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In the World Browser, there are three objects: a curve and two solids. The Construction History helps understand how these solids are created. 2. From the Top view, click the left cylinder solid 1. Make sure that the Object mode is active. From the Construction Tree, we know that this object is not a free-form object, but a simple primitive created with solidThinking. 3. Select the other object, solid 2. From the Construction History, we know that this object is not a primitive or a revolved object, for example, but an object created with the Extrude command.
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2. Solid 2 is created using the Extrude tool. 3. The name of the extruded curve is Curve1. 4. Curve 1 is a circle.
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3. The Pick curve: prompt is displayed. Click the Rectangle in the Front view. 4. The Pick surface: prompt is displayed. Click Solid 2 in any view. What happened to Solid 2? solidThinking hides Solid 2 and creates a new copy with the trim operation. This means that we have two solids: the extruded one and the trimmed one. The extruded solid was automatically hidden. When we use modeling tools, such as Boolean, Intersection, Shell, Round, and so on, a new copy is always created and the original one is always hidden.
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3. The Pick Profile curve: prompt is displayed. 4. In the Front view, click Profile 1. 5. The Rev. axis start prompt is displayed. 6. Press ENTER to confirm.
7. The Revolution axis direction: prompt is displayed. 8. Press ENTER to confirm. If you did not click Profile in the Front view, the revolution direction could change. Select the Z axis from the Modeling Tool panel if this happens.
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As you can see, the Replace operation is performed correctly, but the resulting object is not what we want. This is because there are other objects involved in this Construction History. For example, there are polar copy objects that are positioned at the center. When we replace the profile, solidThinking does not move the polar copy to the new location. In these cases, we must pay attention if other objects are involved in the History. We can place the new profile in the same location as Profile 1. 5. Select the object Surf #3 in any view. 6. From the Construction History, select the Lathe object, Surf #2. 7. From the Lathe Modeling Tool panel, select Replace and click Profile 2.
As you can see, the result is correct. Even if you made a mistake, you can correct it without problems.
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Using the Construction History correctly helps you to correct errors and avoid using the Undo function.
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2. Select solid 2. 3. Press the C keyboard shortcut or select the Edit > Collapse Construction Tree menu option. The following dialog is displayed:
This dialog gives you the option to delete or keep hidden source objects that are not used in another Construction Tree. 4. Click Yes to delete all source objects.
Before collapsing.
As you can see in the World Browser and in the Construction History, if you select Yes (see the image above) Solid 2 does not have any more Construction History. In the World Browser, the source Curve1 is deleted. If you select No, Solid 2 does not have any more Construction History. In the World Browser, the source Curve1 is still hidden in your scene. In this case, if you need it you can visualize it in your views and use it for your needs.
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Below is an example. Suppose that we need to delete the two holes from this object.
How do you know what the last operation is in this Construction History?
According to the Construction Tree, the last operation is the Trim solid.
5. Within the Construction History, click Surf #17 and click Delete.
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Chapter 8
Transformations
Translation
In the active working mode, you can use solidThinking to translate objects or points. If you want to translate an object, the Select Objects mode must be active. If you want to translate points, the Edit Points mode must be active. To toggle between the Select Objects mode and the Edit Points mode, press ALT + spacebar.
Translate objects
To translate an object, the Select Objects mode must be active. Choose one of the following methods: 1. Interactive translation (without choosing the Translate tool). 2. Interactive translation (using the Translate tool). 3. Numerical translation (using the Translate tool).
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If you drag an object that has a complex construction history, it could take some time. This means that solidThinking must recalculate the entire history. Moreover, when you translate a complex object, you must select other involved objects in the same history, otherwise this could compromise the final result.
Drag the red arrow to translate the object along the X direction. Drag the green arrow to translate along the Y direction. Drag the blue arrow to translate along the Z direction. Drag the blue square to translate along the XY plane. Drag the green square to translate along the XZ plane.
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Drag the red square to translate along the YZ plane. Click and drag in an empty space outside the Manipulator to translate freely in any direction without any constraint.
If you want to perform another translation operation using the Manipulator, you must click the Translation icon again or press T. It is better to use always the Translate tool, even if you can move objects without it, especially if there are many overlapped objects in your scene. In this case, you will avoid accidentally selecting and moving other objects.
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Rotate
With the active working modes, you can use solidThinking to rotate objects or points. To rotate objects, be sure that the Select Objects mode is active. To rotate points, you must switch to Edit Points mode. To toggle between Select Objects mode and Edit Points mode, press ALT + spacebar. By default, rotation is view dependent. This means that the rotation is performed according to the two-dimensional plane of the window view where you have selected the item to rotate.
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4. Choose one of the following methods to translate your object: Drag and rotate the yellow circle to rotate the object according the plane of the window view where you have selected the item to rotate. Drag and rotate the blue arc to rotate the object on the XY plane. Drag and rotate the green arc to rotate the object on the XZ plane. Drag and rotate the red arc to rotate the object on the YZ plane.
If you want to perform another rotation operation using the Manipulator, you must click the Rotation icon again or press R.
The views display the center of rotation with a blue hotSpot. 4. Click and drag the center (the blue hotSpot displayed at the center of its bounding box) to the new location. 5. Click the object or an area of the view that is clear of any items and drag it to rotate. If you want to constrain Rotation with a definite degree, just activate the Snap to rotate icon.
Scale
Similar to Translation and Rotation tools, the Scale command is used to scale objects or points. To scale objects, the Select Objects mode must be active. To scale points, you must switch to Edit Points mode. To toggle between Select Objects mode and Edit Points mode, press ALT + spacebar.
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2. Click the Scale icon or use the S keyboard shortcut. The Scale Manipulator, with three arrows and a small cube at the end of each line (red, green and blue), will appear at the center of the object. Also, a blue hotSpot is displayed at the center of the Manipulator. You can drag and place this blue hotSpot in any location to define a different scaling point.
3. Choose one of the following methods to translate your object: Drag the red arrow to scale the object along the X direction. Drag the green arrow to scale along the Y direction. Drag the blue arrow to scale along the Z direction. Drag the blue square (near the center) to scale along the XY plane. Drag the green square (near the center) to scale along the XZ plane. Drag the red square (near the center) to scale along the YZ plane. Click and drag in an empty space outside the Manipulator to scale freely in any direction without any constraint.
If you want to perform another translation operation using the Manipulator, you must click the Translation icon again or press T. Important note: When scaling an object, if an object has a Construction History, you cannot scale the object in one direction only. You can only scale the object proportionally. The Manipulator indicates that an object has a Construction History by displaying yellow cubes at the ends of the XYZ arrows and at the plane points. If you remove the Construction History of an object or select an object without a history, the Manipulator displays red, green and blue cubes instead of the yellow cubes. This indicates that you can now scale the object in a non-proportional way, moving in the X, Y or Z direction.
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4. Click directly on the object or an area of the view that is clear of any items and drag the mouse to scale. If you want to constrain scaling by a specific step, activate the Snap to scale icon. Remember to reactivate the Y and Z axis on the Application toolbar, otherwise you will not be able to draw or move objects on these axes. You cannot scale along a single axis, a primitive, or an object that is involved in a construction history. In this case, the scale is performed always in XYZ. To scale it along one axis, you need to collapse it. See Construction Tree, Chapter 8.
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If you need to change the size of a primitive or an object that is involved in a construction history, it is better to modify its parameters from the Modeling Tool panel instead of using the Scale tool. This helps you avoid scaling its matrix.
3. Pick and drag a hotSpot to change the dimension of your bounding box or insert the new value in the Width field on the Modeling Tool panel. You can deactivate the Constrain Proportions on the Modeling Tool panel to set different values in Width, Depth and Height. You can also set a custom scaling center. Non-uniform scaling transformations do not maintain geometric properties like tangency and curvature continuity between adjacent surfaces.
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Chapter 9
Construction Aids
Background Image
Background images are useful when you need to draw real objects without spending a lot of time measuring those using rulers, gauges, or other precision measuring tools. This is where images or photos become useful.
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You must prepare one sketch for each view. The top sketch in the Top view, the left sketch in the Left view, and so on. Once you prepare the images, you can set them as backgrounds.
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3. Click Browse and choose the audi-tt_Right.tif. 4. Set the Horizontal size dimension to 186 and click Apply. 5. Activate the Center position and click Apply. 6. Set the Vertical Origin to 68 and click Apply. 7. Set Transparency to 0.4 and press OK.
The Ortho adjust forces all the orthographic views to have the same zoom and view point as the selected one.
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2. Background images are not used for the final rendering, in which case you should use the Image shaders from the Background shader class. 3. If you want to remove an image as the background of a view, deactivate Visibility from the Background image panel.
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Chapter 10
Preferences
Exercise 10.1: Setting Preferences
Purpose
Before starting any project, you must modify some default settings in solidThinking for your personal preferences.
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Chapter 11
Grids
Grid Setup
Grids help you place points and objects into the scene with precision. They are extremely useful for placing and aligning objects in an accurate manner. solidThinking lets you adjust grid settings through the Grid setup panel, which can be accessed by selecting the Edit > Grid setup command or by using the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+G. From the Grid setup panel, you can define up to four different grids, each with its own origin, spacing, grid type, and color.
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3. You can also activate and inactivate grids in the Grid setup dialog in the Active snap section. 4. You can toggle between grids while you are drawing any curve or inserting primitives. In this way, you can increase the modeling precision process.
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Chapter 12
Curves
NURBS Curve
A NURBS curve (Non-uniform rational B-spline) is a mathematical model used for generating and representing curves. A NURBS curve is defined by its order, a set of weighted control points, and knots (see below). NURBS curves are generalizations of both B-splines and Bzier curves, the primary difference being the weighting of the control points which makes NURBS curves rational (non-rational Bsplines are a special case of rational B-splines). solidThinking lets you draw curves by placing control points. You can use these tools to draw free form curves.
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2. Click in any view to add points. 3. Press the spacebar or right-click to end the curve creation. Do not press ENTER to end a curve. If you press ENTER, you add a new point in the same location of the preceding point. This may cause problems with your geometry.
In object mode, you can notice a small arrow displayed at the starting point of each curve showing the direction of the curve.
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5. When you switch to Edit Parameters mode, solidThinking displays points in blue. 6. When you select a point, solidThinking displays points in yellow. 7. When you place the mouse over a point, solidThinking displays a text box that indicates the number of the point. This information is helpful to know the direction of the curve.
1. Select the NURBS curve (Curve #1) in the Top view. 2. Press the spacebar to switch to Edit Parameters mode. 3. Pick Point #1. 4. Press the SHIFT key and click on point 4. solidThinking selects all points between 1 and 4. 5. To deselect a point, press the CTRL key and click the point to deselect it. 6. To deselect all points, click in an empty space in any view.
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Order
The order of a NURBS curve defines the number of nearby control points that influence any given point on the curve. The order is the maximum number of bends you can get in each span. The order is determined by the number of points. Remember that the number of control points must be greater than or equal to the order of the curve. A curve that has three points cannot have more than an order of 3. It can have order 2 and order 3. A curve that has four points cannot have more than an order of 4. It can have an order of 2, 3, and 4, but not an order of 5, and so on. solidThinking lets you work with NURBS curves that have orders from two to seven. The default order is 4 for curves with 4 or more points. It is better not to exceed an order of 5. Higher orders are not recommended because they can lead to internal numerical problems and tend to require disproportionately large calculation times.
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When you increase the order, the curve moves away from the points and its shape changes. It is not possible to reduce a NURBS curves order without changing its shape. Moreover, the order modifies the entire curve and not just a part of it.
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3. Enlarge the Top view. 4. Select point #3. 5. From the Modeling Tool panel, click New entity. 6. From the Top view, click the position at which you want to add a point. 7. Add other points and press the spacebar to end.
To add a new entity, the curve must be collapsed. If your curve is in the Construction History and you do not want to collapse it, draw a new curve and use the Combine command to combine them together.
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2. From the Top view, draw a NURBS curve similar to the curve in the image below. Press the spacebar to end. 3. From the Modeling Tool panel, select Closed under Curve type. 4. Switch to Edit Parameters mode and move the first or last point to modify its location. As you can see, the Periodic curve stays smooth when you modify it.
If you want to create a Periodic curve (smooth closing), you must always leave an opening as shown in the image above. You do not need to overlay the first and the last point if the curve must be Periodic.
If you want to create a Non-Periodic curve (with a corner closing), do not select Closed under Curve type. This could be problematic. If you want to separate the start and the end points, select the joint point. From the Modeling Tool panel, click Un-join.
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As seen in the image above, using the value 0.707, the curve became a weighted curve and a perfect arc, while the non-weighted curve is not an arc, but a free-form curve. Basically, to produce a circular arc from a NURBS curve with three control points as the example above, the end points must have the same weight (1.00), while the weight of the central point must be equal to one-half the cosine of half the angle between the segments
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joining the points 0.707. The value 0.707 is the cosine of 45. 0.707 generates a perfect arc if the 2 polygons (the adjacent side) equal 90.
Usually, you do not need to transform circles, arcs, cylinders and so on, in weighted objects unless you need to engineer them. If your models are made for presentation purposes, you do not need weighted objects. However, if your models are made for engineering purposes and for prototyping, you need weighted objects.
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Knots are sequences of parameter values that determine where and how the control points affect the NURBS curve. The number of knots is always equal to the number of control points plus the curve order. When you add a knot, the shape of the curve does not change.
When you add knots, you cannot decide where the points must be located along the curve. solidThinking determines the appropriate position in order to best retain the original shape of the curve.
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Unlike control points, when you add knots and you move a point, the shape in close proximity to the points of the curve does not change.
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Chapter 13
3. The Console prompts: Pick objects to combine. 4. Click Sphere, Cube, and Tours in any view. 5. Press the spacebar to end object selection.
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3. From the Construction History, select Surf #11 (Sphere). 4. In the Modeling Tool panel, change the Radius to 3. When the console displays the message Pick objects to combine, the first object you select will define the origin of the combined objects.
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Note: By using the selection filter you can specify what type of objects you want to select. For example: If you want to select all the curves in a scene, click on the Selection tab and select Pick Curves. You can then click and drag a selection box in order to only select the curves in the scene. Remember to switch back to Pick All when you are finished.
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Chapter 14
Mirror
Most objects are symmetric. For this reason, it could be helpful to create half of a model of the symmetrical part and apply the Mirror tool for the other half instead of modeling it. The Mirror tool creates a mirror copy of one or more objects. When you modify the source object, the other half is updated in real time.
3. The Console prompts: Pick objects to mirror. 4. Click the half handle (Surf #1) to mirror and press the spacebar to end.
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5. At the Start of mirror plane console prompt, click to specify the location. 6. At the End of mirror plane console prompt, click to define the direction of the mirror plane. The items to be mirrored are replicated across the plane from the start point to this end point. Press the SHIFT key to snap to the closest axis. If you model half of the object with the origin aligned exactly at the Start of mirror plane, you can mirror objects more easily. Use Snaps to accurately place the mirror plane, especially if you want to join a surface and its mirrored copy.
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Chapter 15
Surfaces
NURBS Surface
A NURBS surface (Non-uniform rational B-spline) is a mathematical model used for generating and representing surfaces. A NURBS surface is defined by its order, a set of weighted control points, and knots. NURBS surfaces are generalizations of both B-splines and Bzier curves, the primary difference being the weighting of the control points, which makes NURBS surfaces rational (non-rational Bsplines are a special case of rational B-splines).
In solidThinking, you can create NURBS surfaces by adding primitives (plane, sphere, cube, and so on) or using modeling tools (Extrude, Pipe, Birail, and Skin, for example). Each NURBS surface has two directions: U and V direction. The direction of U and V may vary according to the orientation of the surface.
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The surface is not smooth because the order of the surface is 2. As curves, the order of a NURBS surface defines the number of nearby control points that influence any given point on the surface. The order is the maximum number of bends you can get in each span. When a surface has an order of 2, it means that the shape will have corners while a higher order (from 3 to 7) means that the surface is smooth. 6. In the Modeling Tool panel, change the order value from 2 to 3 in the U direction and in the V direction.
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Many shapes are modeled with a single, four-boundary curves surface. For example, a sphere is a single, four-boundary curve surface.
When a four-boundary curves surface is perfectly closed, you will not notice where the fourboundary curve lies because they coincide, perfectly maintaining tangency and continuity. Many other shapes cannot be modeled with a single four-boundary curves surface.
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As you can see in the images above, the cube is created with 6 four-boundary surfaces and not with a single surface, while 3 four-boundary surfaces are required to create a cylinder. One approach to overcoming the four-boundary limitation and to model a non-four-boundary surface is to apply a trimming curve on the surface. Lets look at a trimmed surface.
3. Click the circle. The Console prompts: Pick surface. As you can see, solidThinking hides the internal part from rendering.
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4. Click the trimmed surface. From the World Browser, click the + sign next to the entities that compose the trimmed surface. As you can see in the World Browser, the trimmed surface has five curve entities - fourboundary curves and the circle that is used to trim it.
5. Click the Untrimmed surface. 6. From the World Browser, click the + sign next to the entities that compose the Trimmed surface.
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The plane does not have any more of the trimmed curve. solidThinking hides the boundary curves, even if the plane is a four-boundary surface.
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Chapter 16
Extrude
The Extrude command creates a surface or a solid by extruding a cross sectional profile along a perpendicular direction or oblique direction.
3. Click the curve. The Console prompts: Extrusion length: 1. 4. Drag the End hotSpot to the desired location in the Front, Right, or Perspective view. 5. From the Modeling Tool panel, select Flat cap under Start cap and End cap to close the extrusion.
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Repeat the extrusion tool if you want to extrude other curves. If you want to extrude more curves together with the same length value, you can combine them before extruding. To extrude a curve using a free direction, in the Modeling Tool panel, locate Options and click the Free direction check box to activate it. If you switch to Edit Parameters mode, you can extrude any curve in different directions.
25 units length
Central section
Order 2
Order 3
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2. Click Extrude. The Console prompts: Pick profile curve. 3. Click the combined object. The Console prompts: Extrusion length: 1. 4. Enter the value 15 and click Enter to confirm. 5. From the Modeling Tool panel, click Flat cap under Start cap and End cap to close the extrusion.
1. Delete the Extruded object. 2. Click Fillpath. The Console prompts: Select curves to fill. 3. Click the combined object and press the spacebar to end. 4. Click the Extrude Surface command. The Console prompts: Pick a NURBS surface object: 5. Click the filled surface. The Console prompts: End: 0,0,0. 6. From the Front, Right, or Perspective view, drag the end point upwards to the necessary location and release the mouse.
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Chapter 17
Skin
With the Skin tool, you can create a variety of complex surfaces in a very simple way. You can model boat hulls, terrain, cellular phones, rims, bottles, a human head, simple arched surfaces, and many others.
1. Open the file Skin01.st. 2. Click the Skin icon. The Console prompts: Pick curves to skin.
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3. Pick the first, second, and third curve as shown in the image above. Press the spacebar to end.
2. Pick the Arched surface and the Extruded surface. Press the spacebar to end. 3. Click the Round icon. The Console prompts: Select surface. 4. Click the new solid. The Console prompts: Click edges. 5. Hold down the left mouse button and drag out a rectangle in the Perspective view so as to enclose all edges. Press the spacebar to stop inserting radii. 6. The Console prompts: Default radius. Type 0.5 and press ENTER. 7. The Console prompts: Perform Go (Yes, No): Y. Press ENTER to confirm.
3. In the Modeling Tool panel, change the points from 8 to 15. 4. Click Edit Points mode. 5. Select points as show in the image below.
7. In the Top view, hold down the left mouse button and drag from the outside toward the inside to scale. Or, in the Modeling Tool panel, insert 0.5 in the Scale field. 8. Switch to Select Objects mode. 9. Use the CTRL + C shortcut to copy the circle to the clipboard. 10. Use the CTRL + V shortcut to paste a copy of the circle (do not deselect the new circle). 11. Press the T key or click the Translate icon. 12. In the Front view, drag the circle upward as shown in the image below. (3 units in Z).
13. Use the CTRL + C shortcut to copy the circle to the clipboard again. 14. Use the CTRL + V shortcut to paste a copy of the circle (do not deselect the new circle). 15. In the Modeling Tool panel, change the radius of the circle to 6. 16. Click the Skin icon. The Console prompts: Pick curves to skin. 17. Click the first, second and third curves and press the spacebar to end. 18. From the Modeling Tool panel, click the Spline interpolation. 19. In the Spline order field, insert the value 3.
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Note that you can use either opened curves or closed curves.
2. Click the Skin icon. The Console prompts: Pick curves to skin.
3. Click the first, second, and third curves and press the spacebar to end. 4. From the Modeling Tool panel, click Spline interpolation.
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5. In the Spline order field, insert the value 3. 6. From the Modeling Tool panel, click the Start and End cap to close the cake form.
8. Click the cake form. The Console prompts: Distance. 9. Insert 0.5 for the thickness and press the spacebar to end. 10. In the title bar of the Perspective view, click the W to switch to Wireframe (Wireframe visualization will help you better select the edges). 11. Click the Round icon. The Console prompts: Select surface.
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12. Pick the cake form. The Console prompts: Click edges. 13. Click the external and the internal as shown in the image above and press the spacebar to end. The Console prompts: Default radius for new insertion. 14. Insert the value 0.5 and press ENTER. The Console prompts: Perform Go. 15. Press ENTER to confirm. 16. In the title bar of the Perspective view, click S to switch back to Shaded visualization.
4. From the Modeling Tool panel, click Periodic Skin to close the shape and to transform the surface into a periodic surface as shown in the image below.
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Periodic skin surface means that the surface is closed without developing a corner, maintaining continuity. Sometimes, if curves are inverted or if you start skinning selecting curves counter-clockwise, the surface could twist as shown in the image below. 5. Delete the Skin surface or open the file Skin04.st. 6. Click the Skin icon. The Console prompts: Pick curves to skin. 7. Pick curves 1, 2, 3, and 4 as shown in the image below and press the spacebar to end.
As you can see the surface is twisted ad the start edge. 8. From the Modeling Tool panel, click Periodic Skin to close the shape and to transform the surface in a periodic surface. 9. Switch to Edit mode and click the first edge as shown in the image below. The edge becomes yellow.
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10. In the Modeling Tool panel, drag the Seam position slider or insert a value to rotate the edge. If you insert the value 0.5, the starting point will position exactly at the center of the edge. You can modify intentionally the Seam position even if the shape is correct in order to deform your model. 11. In Edit Parameters mode, select the edge as shown in the image below. 12. In the Modeling Tool panel, drag the Seam position slider or insert the value 0.35 to rotate the edge. If you insert the value, the starting point will position exactly at the center of the edge.
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Chapter 18
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3. Pick profile 1, profile 2, and then pick profile 1 again as shown in the image below. Press the spacebar to stop selecting profiles. The Console prompts: Pick extrusion path curves. 4. Pick the Extrusion path.
If the extrusion path is not a 2D planer curve, profiles could rotate along it as you can see in the image above.
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1. Select your ring. 2. From the Modeling Tool panel, select Axes origin to align profiles. As you can see in the image below, the internal radius of the ring now coincides with the extrusion path. Using the Axes origin alignment type is very useful to align profiles exactly where you need to. To take advantage of this powerful option, you must position your curve axes exactly where it must be.
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You can also try the Point on curve alignment type. This option aligns the profiles on the Path curve. You can define the alignment position by dragging the Align at slider or by inserting a value from 0 to 1. As with the Loft tool, the Pipe tool creates a surface or solid by extruding only one profile along a Path curve.
Pipe
Exercise 18.2: Extruding a Profile Along a Path
Purpose
This exercise illustrates how to use the Pipe command.
Step 1: Invert and align profile curves along the extrusion path
By default, the Pipe tool aligns all profiles at the center of the extrusion path. If you want to bind profiles at a specific position along the path, you must choose a different alignment type. 1. Open the file Pipe01.st. 2. Click the Pipe icon. The Console prompts: Pick profile curve. 3. Pick the profile as shown in the image below. The Console prompts: Pick extrusion path curve. 4. Pick the Extrusion path curve as shown in the image below.
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In the image above, the surface is inverted. This happens because of the direction of the curve or because of the extrusion profile. To invert the direction, follow this procedure.
Step 3: Align the starting point of the profile on the extrusion path
To align the starting point of your profile on your extrusion path, follow this procedure. 1. Select the Pipe object. 2. From the Modeling Tool panel, select the Invert profile normal as shown in the image above.
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When objects are overlapped, sometimes it could be difficult to select an object in a 3D view. In this case, when the Console prompts to select a curve or a surface, you can pick it in the World Browser instead. This technique also helps you to avoid unintentionally picking the wrong one.
2. Click the Extract edge icon. The Console prompts: Pick edges.
3. Pick the four edges as shown in the image above while pressing the CTRL key and then press the spacebar to end. 4. Click the Fillpath icon. The Console prompts: Select curves to fill.
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5. Pick the extracted curve in any view or within the browser if you are not able to pick in the perspective view. Press the spacebar to end. 6. Click the Extract edge icon. The Console prompts: Pick edges. 7. Pick the four edges as shown in the image below while pressing the CTRL key and then press the spacebar to end. To succeed selecting the four edges, just rotate your perspective view so that you can pick the right edge, and avoid picking the wrong one as shown in the images below. 8. Click the Fillpath icon. The Console prompts: Select curves to fill. 9. Pick the extracted curve in any view or within the browser if you are not able to pick in the Perspective view. Press the spacebar to end.
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This happens because the width of the Profile curve (the ellipse) is larger than the radius of the corner of the Extrusion path. To avoid this, the profile must always be smaller than then radius of the corner. 5. Select the Pipe surface. 6. From the Construction History, pick the Extrusion path (Rounded polyline). 7. Switch to Edit Parameters mode (press the spacebar to switch). 8. Select the two vertices as shown in the image below. 9. In the Modeling Tool panel, change the Radius to 5. 10. Switch to Select Objects mode (press the spacebar to switch).
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Chapter 19
Birail
The Birail creates a surface using one profile curve passing through two rails. Here is a simple example on how to use this tool:
3. In the Perspective view, click the Profile curve as shown in the image below. 4. The Console prompts: Pick rail curve #1 near start. Click the Rail 1 as shown in the image below. 5. The Console prompts: Pick rail curve #2 near start. Click the Rail 1 as shown in the image below.
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When the Console prompts to pick rails near start, you must click the two rails in the same positions, otherwise you will get a bad surface as shown in the image below.
As you can see in the image above, the surface is more precise. If you need additional precision, you might choose other accuracy options. For instance, you can use the Global 3D tolerance.
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The Tolerance value determines the degree of accuracy maintained between the original surface and the rails. The default (Global 3D tolerance) is to be accurate to within 0.01 units, where a unit refers to the current unit of linear measure (the default unit of measure is centimeters). Therefore, at no point will the polygonal surface be more than the tolerance distance away from the original NURBS surface.
By default, the Birail tool creates a surface without caps. If you need a solid, you must activate the Start cap and End cap. When you activate these options, be sure that your profile curve is a closed curve, otherwise your objects will not be a correct solid.
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Chapter 20
Multisweep
The Multisweep tool is similar to the Birail tool, but instead of one profile and two rails, you can use as many profiles/rails as you need. Moreover, to generate the surface, the profiles and rails must match. Here is a simple example on how to use this tool.
3. In the Perspective view, click the two profile curves as shown in the image below and press the spacebar to end. 4. The Console prompts: Pick rail curve(s) - Spacebar to end as shown in the image below. 5. In the Perspective view, click the two rails as shown in the image below and press the spacebar to end.
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The result is quite good. But the isoparametric curves of the surface are inclined with respect to the profile curves as you can see in the image below. To create a more linear surface, your rails must have the same number of points. 6. Delete your Multisweep surface. 7. Click the Rebuild icon. The Console prompts: Pick a curve.
8. In the Perspective view, click the First rail. The Console prompts: Points number: 15. 9. In the Console field, insert the value 30 and press ENTER to confirm. 10. Click the Multisweep icon. The Console prompts: Pick profile curve - Spacebar to end. 11. In the Perspective view, click the two Profile curves and press the spacebar to end. 12. The Console prompts: Pick rail curve(s) - Spacebar to end. 13. In the Perspective view, click the two rails as shown in the image below and press the spacebar to end.
3. In the Perspective view, click the two profile curves as shown in the image below and press the spacebar to end. 4. The Console prompts: Pick rail curve(s) - Spacebar to end as shown in the image below. 5. In the Perspective view, click the two rails as shown in the image below and press the spacebar to end.
In the image above, the Multisweep surface does not match the second rail. This is because the number or curves or points between the two rails are not enough. To obtain a more precise surface, just add more curves.
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Chapter 21
Lathe
Exercise 21.1: Creating Exactly Spherical Revolution Surfaces
Purpose This exercise illustrates how to create a lathe surface. Step 1: Rotate a profile
The Lathe command creates a surface by rotating a profile curve around its X, Y, or Z-axis or any user-defined vector. 1. Open the file Lathe01.st. 2. Click the Front view to activate it. 3. Click the Lathe icon. The Console prompts: Pick profile curve:.
4. Click the Vase profile. The Console prompts: Rev. axis start: 5. Click Enter to confirm. The Console prompts: Revolution axis direction. 6. Click Enter to confirm.
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What you see is not really an error. The rotation is performed correctly, but around the wrong axis. 7. Select the Lathe object. 8. From the Modeling Tool panel, click Z axis under the Rev. axis dir.
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In this case, the revolution axis is not wrong, but we still need to change the Revolution direction in a different axis to obtain the necessary shape. 7. Select the Lathe object. 8. From the Modeling Tool panel, click X axis under Rev. axis dir. 9. In the Long. start angle field, enter the value 270.
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10. In the Long. end angle field, insert the value 90.
As you can see in the images above, if the first and the second point of the revolution curve are not perfectly tangent to the perpendicular plane of the revolution axis, the Lathe surface will present a discontinuity. To avoid discontinuity, you must correct the second point and align it tangent to the perpendicular plan of the revolution axis. 7. Select the Lathe surface in any view.
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8. From the Construction Tree, select Curve #1. 9. Switch to Edit Parameters mode. 10. Select Point #2 11. Click Grid 2 to activate the grid. 12. Drag and align the Point #2 tangent to Point #1.
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As you can see in the image above, if the end point surpasses and deviates from the revolution axis, the surface will auto intersect and will present a problem. To avoid auto intersecting the surface, the end point must be perfectly aligned to the revolution axis. 7. Select the Lathe surface in any view. 8. From the Construction Tree, select Curve #1. 9. Switch to Edit Parameters mode. 10. Select the end point as shown in the image above. 11. Click Grid 2 to activate the grid. 12. Drag and align the point to the Revolution axis.
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Chapter 22
RadialSweep
Unlike the Lathe command, the RadialSweep command creates a surface by sweeping one or more profile curves between a rail curve and a common rotational point in space. By default, the rotational point is the end point of the first profile that is picked.
3. Click the spacebar to end. 4. Click the profile in the Front view and press the spacebar. The Console prompts: Pick rail curve. 5. In the Top view, click the rail.
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6. See the Lathe command on how to avoid discontinuity and auto intersecting surfaces at the revolution point. 7. To create a more precise shape, you must draw more profile curves as in the following example. See the file Radialsweep02.st.
9. If you use only one profile with complex closed rails, you will not obtain a good surface. In this case, you can increase the detail of the surface.
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Chapter 23
Coons
The Coons tool is very useful for some automotive parts, such as doors or hoods.
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3. In the Perspective view, pick Curve 1 as shown in the image below. The Console prompts: Pick Curve 2. 4. In the Perspective view, pick Curve 2. The Console prompts: Pick Curve 3. 5. In the Perspective view, pick Curve 3. The Console prompts: Pick Curve 4. 6. In the Perspective view, pick Curve 4.
When the Console prompts you to pick the four curves, you must select them consecutively, otherwise the surface will be generated in the wrong way.
3Sides
Exercise 23.2: Creating a Surface Blended between Three Boundary Curves.
Purpose
This exercise illustrates how to create a 3-sided surface using the 3Sides command.
3. In the Perspective view, pick Curve 1 as shown in the image below. The Console prompts: Pick Curve 2. 4. In the Perspective view, pick Curve 2. The Console prompts: Pick Curve 3.
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Curves Network
The Curves Network creates a surface from a network of curves.
3. In the Perspective view, pick the three curves as shown in the image below and press the spacebar to end the curve selection in direction 1. The Console prompts: Select curves direction 2. 4. In the Perspective view, pick the two curves as shown in the image below and press the spacebar to end the curve selection in direction 2.
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All curves in the first direction must cross the curves in the other direction and must not cross each other.
The Curves Network tool is similar to the Multisweep tool, but uses a different interpolation method to create the surface. You can try both to see which surface will meet your expectations.
Multiseep surface
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If the shape you are creating is complex like the image above, the Curves Network could create a surface having too many control points.
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Chapter 24
3. In the Perspective view, click the two curves and press the spacebar to end.
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Not allowed
Allowed
Overlaid curves are not allowed; all curves must form a unique boundary.
Not allowed
Allowed
Not allowed
Not allowed
If you are filling more than one curve, all curves must be closed.
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Not allowed
Allowed
Not allowed
Allowed
Concentric curves must not touch each other; you must leave some space between them.
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3. Click the Boundary curve as shown in the image below and press the spacebar. 4. The Console prompts: Select internal curves. In any view, click the internal curve and press the spacebar to end.
5. As you can see in the image above, the surface does not match the boundary curve exactly. To create a more precise surface, scroll the Modeling Tool panel until you see the field CVs along U. Insert the value 5 and press ENTER to confirm. In the CVs along V field, insert the value 4 and press ENTER to confirm.
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Chapter 25
Blend Surfaces
Blend Surface creates a surface that forms a blending between two or more surface edges. Sometimes it is impossible to create a complex object using one single tool like Skin, Loft, Multisweep, and so on. In this case, it is better to create more surfaces and blend them together. Other times, instead of drawing many profiles to create a shape, it is better to simplify the procedure by creating only a few curves and blend together the two surfaces as in the example below.
3. In the Perspective view, pick the surface as shown in the image below. The Console prompts: Pick edges near start on surface 1:. 4. In the Perspective view, click the blue edge as shown in the image below and press the spacebar to stop picking edges. The Console prompts: Pick edges near start on surface 2:. 5. In the Perspective view, click the blue edge as shown in the image below and press the spacebar to stop picking edges.
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The point where you pick the second edge determines how the blend surface results. To avoid a twisted surface, the edges of surface 2 should be picked as illustrated in the images above.
3.
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5. Click the Trim icon. The Console prompts: Pick curve. 6. In the Perspective or Front view, click the inner combined curves as shown in the image below. 7. The Console prompts: Pick surface. In the Perspective or Front view, click the inner bottle as shown in the image below.
8. Click the Blend Surface icon. The Console prompts: Pick surface 1:. 9. In the Perspective view, pick the surface as shown in the image below. The Console prompts: Pick edges near start on surface. 10. In the Perspective view, click the blue edge as shown in the image below and press the spacebar to stop picking edges. The Console prompts: Pick edges near start on surface 2. 11. In the Perspective view, click the blue edge as shown in the image below and press the spacebar to stop picking edges.
12. Repeat the same operation on the lower part In the following example (Blend Surface 03.st), the two surfaces have the same closure position and the blend surface is created without any twisting effect.
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While in this example, the two surfaces do not have the same closure position and the blend surface is twisted.
To avoid twisted surfaces, all surfaces must have the closure in the same position or direction.
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1. Open the file Trim surf 01.st. 2. Click the Trim icon. The Console prompts: Pick curve.
3. In the Front view, pick the ellipse as shown in the image below. The Console prompts: Pick surface. 4. In the Perspective view, pick the bottle surface.
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By default, the Trim tool trims in both directions. If you need to trim only one side of the surface, the curve must be inside the object as shown in the image above. 5. Scroll your Modeling Tool panel until you see the Projection direction section and select Curve normal. If you want to trim the other side of the surface, click Inverse curve normal.
If the curve is placed outside the object, you cannot only trim one side, even if you choose the correct direction.
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Step 1: Trim the same surface with more than one curve
If you want to trim the same surface with more than one curve, it is better to combine all curves together before the trimming operation. If you trim the same surface ten times, for example, this increases considerably the Construction History calculation. Moreover, the file size will be bigger. 1. Open the file Trim surf 03.st. 2. Click the Combine icon. The Console prompts: Pick objects to combine. 3. In the Perspective view, pick all 13 curves and press the spacebar to end. 4. Click the Trim icon. The Console prompts: Pick curve. 5. In the Perspective view, pick the combined curves. The Console prompts: Pick surface. 6. In the Perspective view, pick the birail surface.
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Trimmed surface
Non-trimmed surface
Final rendering
2. In some cases the Trim and Trim solid operations could fail. Below are a list of situations that should be avoided when trimming a surface or a solid:
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Not correct
Correct
Correct
When you trim an object, the curve must exceed the surface as shown in the images below.
Not correct
Not correct
Correct
When you trim an object with a combined curve, all entities must match correctly. If the Trim operation fails, you must control if all the edges of the entities are coincident or not.
Not correct
Correct
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3. In the Perspective view, pick the ellipse as shown in the image below. The Console prompts: Pick surface. 4. In the Perspective view, pick the solid as shown in the image below.
Similar to the Trim tool, by default the Trim solid tool trims a solid, creating a passing hole. To create a bas-relief on the object, you must translate the trimming curve and place it exactly at the desired depth.
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Not allowed
Allowed
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3. In the Perspective view, pick the pot. The Console prompts: Pick surface 2. 4. In the Perspective view, pick the spout. The Console prompts: Choose which surface will be split (Both, 1st, 2nd). 5. Press ENTER to confirm to split both surfaces. The Console prompts: Select faces to remove.
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6. In the Perspective view, select the inner entity of the pot. The entity turns yellow. Hold down the CTRL key, select the inner entity of the lip, and press the spacebar to end selecting faces.
Sometimes, it could be difficult to select faces to remove, especially if the scene has many objects. To select the correct faces, rotate and zoom your view to better select them.
Sometimes, the intersect operations could fail. Here is a list of situations that should be avoided to correctly intersect 2 surfaces: When you want to intersect two surfaces together, be sure that the edges are coincident.
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Not correct
Correct
When you want to intersect two surfaces together, be sure that the surface is completely inside the other surface.
Not correct
Correct
Make Manifold
The Make Manifold creates a manifold object (perfect solid) from non-manifold objects (surfaces or combined surfaces). The Make Manifold command deletes excess faces, edges, and vertices to get to a solid or a manifold topology. To use it correctly, all the surfaces that you model must exceed, or at least all the edges of the surfaces must match together.
2. Click the Make Manifold icon. The Console prompts: Pick objects.
3. In the Perspective view, pick all surfaces and press the spacebar to end. When you pick a surface, it will disappear. Only when you finish picking all necessary surfaces and when you press the spacebar to end, the solid is created. If nothing is displayed when you press the spacebar, this means that one or more surfaces are not modeled correctly or some surfaces do not match correctly to the others.
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Boolean Operator
The Boolean Operator works with a solid. You can subtract or add solids to other solids. You can also create a solid by intersecting two solids together.
Difference 1st 2
nd
Difference 2
nd
-1
st
Intersection
Union 1st + 2
nd
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3. Click Cube1. The Console prompts: Pick Surface 2. 4. Click Cube2. The Console prompts: Diff1, Diff2, Inters, Union. 5. Press ENTER to confirm the difference first Cube1, minus the second Cube2. 6. Click the Boolean operator icon again. The Console prompts: Pick Surface 1. 7. Click the new object. The Console prompts: Pick Surface 2. 8. Click the scaled sphere. The Console prompts: Diff1, Diff2, Inters, Union. 9. Press ENTER to confirm the difference first cube minus the second.
If you typed the wrong Boolean operation in the console, you do not need to delete it, nor undo the last operation. Go to the Modeling Tool panel and choose the appropriate Boolean operation.
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4. Click the upper four scale spheres. The Console prompts: Diff1, Diff2, Inters, Union. 5. Type U in the Console and press ENTER to confirm adding the spheres to the bottle. 6. Click the Boolean operator icon again. The Console prompts: Pick surface 1. 7. Click the bottle. The Console prompts: Pick Surface 2. 8. Click the combined objects. The Console prompts: Diff1, Diff2, Inters, Union. 9. Press ENTER to confirm.
If you want to use the Boolean operator with many objects instead of repeating the operation many times, it is better to first combine all objects together and then perform one single Boolean operation.
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3. Pick the object as shown in the image below. solidThinking visualizes in blue all edges that are possible to round. 4. The Console prompts: Click edges where you want to insert radii. 5. In the Perspective view, click the two edges as shown in the image below. Inserted radii are displayed in yellow. Press the spacebar to end.
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6. The Console prompts: Default radius. Type the radius value 10 and press ENTER. 7. The Console prompts: Perform GO (Yes, No)? Y. Press ENTER to confirm the operation.
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Step 4: Steps to take if solidThinking does not perform the Round operation
If a radius is too big, solidThinking will not perform the round operation. Do the following if this happens. 1. Select the two radii as shown in the image below. 2. In the Modeling Tool panel, change the radius dimension to 18 and press GO to perform the round operation. As you can see, the Round tool did not perform the round operation because the dimension of the two radii is too big. Change the value to 17 and press GO to perform the Round operation.
Variable Radii
Exercise 28.2: Creating the Variable Radii
Purpose
The exercise illustrates how to add and modify radii.
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7. Select your object. 8. Press the spacebar to switch to Edit Parameters mode. 9. Select the two radii as shown in the image below. 10. In the Modeling Tool panel, enter in the Radius field the value 0.2 and press GO to perform the new round operation. 11. In the Modeling Tool panel, select Insert radius. 12. Click the upper edge and insert the other two radii as shown in the image below. 13. Disable Insert radius. 14. Select the radius as shown in the image below. 15. In the Modeling Tool panel, enter 1.5 in the Radius field and press GO to perform the new round operation. 16. Press GO, or alternatively use the Alt+G shortcut to perform the new round operation.
For more details, see the on-line help or the solidThinking manual.
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19. Pick the object as shown in the image below. solidThinking visualizes in blue all edges that are possible to round.
20. The Console prompts: Click edges where you want to insert radii. 21. In the Perspective view, click the two edges as shown in the image below. Inserted radii are displayed in yellow. Press the spacebar to end.
22. The Console prompts: Default radius. Type the radius value .5 and press ENTER. 23. The Console prompts: Perform GO (Yes, No)? Y. Press ENTER to confirm the operation. In this case the rounds cant be calculated with the default settings because the edges of the rounds converge and intersect each other.
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24. In the tool panel find the Overlap options. Select Blend Overlapping Rounds and click on Go at the top of the panel or Alt+G to recalculate.
25. By default the concave round is calculated first. In order to reverse the calculate select the Round convex first option at the bottom of the Overlap options.
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Chapter 29
Face Extract
The Face Extract tool allows you to convert surface entities to objects while retaining the construction history. This can be very useful when rendering an object made of many surface entities that requires multiple materials to be applied, and retaining construction history is important.
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3. Pick the Cube (Surf #1). 4. The Console prompts: Pick faces. solidThinking visualizes in blue all faces that are possible to select. 5. In the Perspective view, click the top face as shown in the image below. Selected faces are displayed in yellow. Press the spacebar to end.
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We now need to perform the Face Extract again for the original five sides of the Cube. 7. Click the Face Extract icon. The Console prompts: Select surface.
8. From the World Browser select the original object Surf #1 9. In the Perspective view, click the top face again as shown in the image below. Press the spacebar to end.
10. In the Modeling tool panel click Invert selection and Hide source obj.
11. Click on the source object Surf #1 from the World Browser. 12. In the Modeling tool panel click and drag the slider for the Width. Note that Surf #2 and Surf #3 have automatically been updated.
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Spherical Preview
Cylindrical Preview
Cubical Preview
Planar Preview
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4. When you choose a spherical, cylindrical, cubical, or any planer preview, you should change the Object size in the Shading panel to have the same dimensions as your objects in the scene. For instance, if the dimension of your object is about 50 units, it is better to set the preview object size to 50 to get a more realistic dimension in the preview. The Object size does not work with the Current camera or the Current object previews because these previews have rational dimension. This panel is covered more closely in the Materials, Lights, and Backgrounds chapters.
When you choose the CTRL + R shortcut to render a specific view, be sure that the mouse pointer is upon that view. solidThinking supports a number of alternative rendering methods. By default, the rendering method is set to Raytrace full rendering. The model is rendered as a fully shaded and textured, anti-aliased image using the full ray tracer renderer. The geometry is sampled at a sufficient rate to eliminate aliasing artifacts in regions of a high intensity gradient. To achieve a high quality rendering, always select the Raytrace full method.
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The Rendering dialog is displayed as shown below. 2. From the Rendering Method drop-down menu, select a different method. 3. Click the title bar of the Perspective view to activate it. 4. From the Render menu, select Render current view or press CTRL + R.
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Raytrace Full
Scanline preview
Phong method
Flat method
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2. Once you click to select a picture, you can save it or delete it. The Renderings Browser also allows you to delete all the listed images.
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Chapter 31
Lights
The light is the most important element in a rendered image or animation. Knowing how a light works with objects in a 3D scene will help you in choosing the best way to simulate it. In this chapter, we will see how lights work in solidThinking.
When you insert a light object in your scene, it doesnt have any light attributes. You must assign a light shader to light up your scene.
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4. Click the title bar of the Perspective view to activate it. 5. From the Render menu, select Render current view.
6. When you assign a light source by default, the light does not project shadows. 7. In any view, select your light. 8. From the Shading panel, under Shader tree, select Light [point]. Select On under shadows to activate the shadow projection.
Shadow Types
solidThinking offers two types of shadows: soft shadows (shadow mapping) and hard shadows (raytraced shadows).
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Soft Shadows
Soft shadows or shadow maps are typically the quickest and most efficient shadows to render. However, they can have a finite resolution and sometimes need to be adjusted (as described below) to avoid artifacts. This kind of shadow works by pre-computing a depth map to determine where shadows are rendered. A shadow map is based on an array of distance measurements from the light to the nearest visible geometry.
With soft shadows, there are four options that can be set to realize quality shadows: shadow resolution, shadow quality, shadow softness, and shadow tolerance. Soft shadow options do not work with hard shadows.
Shadow Resolution
By default, the shadow resolution is set to 1000. Normally, you do not need to change this value unless you see pixilation or artifacts in the shadow edges. The pixilation depends on the quality of the shadow, the shadow resolution, and the distance of the light source from the object. If the light source is far away from the object, you will get pixilation in the shadow edges.
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Shadow quality 4
Shadow quality 8
Shadow quality 16
Shadow Quality
By default, shadow quality is set to four. If your shadows present some artifacts, increase the shadow quality as you see in the image above. The minimum value is one and the maximum value is 16.
Shadow Softness
By default, the shadow softness is set to one. The minimum value is one and the maximum value is 20. Normally, it is better to set small softness values. Too much softness can cause visible gaps between the object casting a shadow and the point where the shadow itself starts. A high softness can even let light "leak" through walls and corners that should be blocking the light. The softness of the shadow depends also on the distance of the light from the object. The farther the light is placed from the object, the shadows edges are softer and the more quality and shadow resolution you need.
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2. Click the Perspective view title bar to activate it. 3. Press CTRL + R to render your scene. As you can see in the image below, the scene presents light leaking through the corner. To fix that, follow the steps below.
4. In any view, select the point light. 5. Open the Shading panel by pressing CTRL+3. 6. Select Light [point], scroll through the panel until shadow tolerance is displayed, and enter 0.01 in the field. As you can see in the image above, the light leaking through the corner and around the cube disappeared. Here are some tips that you can use to avoid light leaking: If you are using a spot light, make sure the cone is as narrow as possible and aim it just where it needs light. Do not use high shadow softness values. Model thicker walls instead of using thin surfaces. Create beveled or rounded walls or objects, not perfect 90-degree angles.
Soft shadow types do not handle transparency well, even if the transparent and colored object is as shown in the images below.
Soft shadow
Hard shadow
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Hard Shadows
Hard shadows (also called raytraced shadows), are shadows computed by tracing rays of light between light sources and illuminated objects. Raytraced shadows are computed one pixel at a time as you render, rather than being pre-computed and stored in shadow maps. This is why hard shadow types (raytraced shadows) can produce only hard edge transparent shadows from transparent colored surfaces as you can see in the image above. This doesnt mean that you cannot obtain soft transparent shadows. With solidThinking, you can create soft, transparent colored shadows using area lights as you can see in the image above.
Fall Off
Lights in the real world have decay or falloff. In other words, the farther away you get from a light, the dimmer the illumination from the light becomes. This is because the light waves (or particles) spread out and become less dense over a distance. By default, the falloff is set to constant. This means that there will be no illumination falloff over a distance. No matter how far away you get, the illumination from the light source remains the same. In solidThinking, you have four types of falloff: Constant, Linear, Square, Linear no clamp, and Square no clamp. As you can see in the first image below, all objects have the same intensity and there is no illumination falloff over distance.
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In the real world, lights fall off quickly. This means that the Square fall off is more realistic. Sometimes, however, it could be helpful to choose the linear fall off to obtain a certain effect.
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Cool-colored light is considered better for visual tasks, while warm-colored light is preferred for living spaces because it is considered more flattering to skin tones and clothing. Color temperatures in the 27004000 K range are recommended for most general indoor and task lighting. The default color of any new light in solidThinking is white. This means that light sources do not use real-world light color temperature, which is why the temperature field is set to 0.
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Intensity Unit
The default unit value of any new light in solidThinking is an empirical unit. This means that light sources do not use real-world units. However, you can choose a different intensity unit for each light. Intensity units allow real-world lighting units. All values listed are photometric, or have luminous quantities. When you choose a different intensity unit, you must change the intensity of the light. For instance, if you choose the Lumen intensity unit, you must set in the intensity field the correct Lumen values. If you choose Candela, you must change the intensity unit using the Candela or Watt values, and so on.
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8. Click the Perspective title bar to activate it and press CTRL + 3 to render the scene.
As you can see in the image above, the light that you have placed outside passes the wall because the shadow option was not enabled. This technique is very helpful when creating secondary light source simulating the bouncing light. Even if you added a secondary light, the walls and the shadows seem dark. You can make them lighter by adding an ambient light.
If you render your scene, you will notice that it is lighter. In the real world, light reflects from one surface to the other over and over until all light energy has been absorbed. This is known as radiosity. Unless you use the Radiosity or Final gather techniques to simulate approximately this effect, we can add an ambient light as well. The ambient light doesnt exist in the real world. The ambient intensity simply adds an illumination value to every pixel in the scene. Ambient light, therefore, has the effect of filling in shadows and flattening out shape and form. By default, the intensity of the ambient light is 0.1. As a rule, this intensity value is quite enough and you should not increase its intensity, otherwise your scene will appear bright and squashed. Remember to reduce the main light intensity when you add more lights to your scene. Otherwise, the whole scene or some objects will look very bright.
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Unlike the point light that emits rays in all directions, the spot light does not emit rays outside the cone angle. This means that other objects outside the cone angle are completely dark if you dont have any other light in your scene.
Beam distribution 50
Using combinations of cone delta, beam distribution, and fall off, you can create very hardedged theatrical spotlights, very soft-edged light, or anything in between. The distant light works exactly as the spot light, except that the distant light is composed of all parallel light rays and parallel shadows, while the spot lights rays all emanate from one point. All the parameters are exactly the same, so refer to the previous discussion on spot lights.
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Distant lights dont exist in the real-world. Rather than emanating from a single point as in a point light or spot light, the distant lights light rays run parallel, projecting parallel shadows. A distant light is intended to behave like sunlight. The sunlight is not, in fact, made of parallel rays, but sometimes we can simulate it, if the viewer doesnt look too closely.
Soft shadows
Hard shadows
Area shadows
You can create three types of shadows: soft shadows, hard shadows, and area shadows. Area shadows require that the light have a size - this means that you must use a surface as a light source. Here is an example on how to transform a surface in an area light.
2. Select Surf #3 as shown in the image below. 3. Open the Shading panel and select the Surface tab. 4. Under the Shader tree, right-click Emission and select the area shader. 5. Click the title bar of the Perspective view to activate it and press CTRL + R to render.
The rendering is completely black because of the intensity and the direction of the area light. By default, the area light has the Square fall off active as shown in the area light parameters above. This means that to illuminate your scene, you need to increase the intensity. 6. Select the area light in any view (if you deselected it). 7. Open the Shading panel (if you closed it). 8. In the intensity field, enter the value 300. If you render your scene, it will still be black because the area light is lighting upwards as shown in the image below. The surface needs to be rotated.
9. Rotate the area light as shown in the image above. 10. As with any other light in solidThinking, by default, the area light does not cast shadows. 11. Select the area light in any view (if its deselected). 12. Open the Shading panel (if you closed it). 13. Make sure Emissions is set to area. From the Parameters column, under shadows, click the On check box to activate shadows. 14. Under shadow type, select Hard as shown in the image above. 15. Click the title bar of the Perspective view to activate it and press CTRL + R to render.
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If shadows are not be reproduced correctly as shown in the image, above you must change one or more values of the min lod and max lod fields for the area light. The min lod parameter determines the initial sampling for lighting calculation and visibility analysis. If min lod is too low, then shadow boundaries may not be reproduced correctly. If it is too big, then rendering times will be excessive. Practical values are between 0.0 and 5.0. While the max lod delimits the maximum amount of work, we are willing to let the shader carry out for any point being illuminated. The suggested range for max lod is [0.0, 1.0], although values greater than 1.0 are allowed. The practical range is 0.5 and 5.0. 16. In min lod field, enter 1. In max lod field, enter 5.0 as shown in the image above. 17. Click the title bar of the Perspective view to activate it and press CTRL + R to render. As you see in the image above, the shadow is reproduced correctly.
Area shadows
Soft shadows
Hard shadows
Area lights require much more rendering time than other lights. For this reason, sometimes a simpler source, such as a point light or a spot light, would have the same effect and take less time if more realism is required. The area lights are well suited to the Radiosity or Final Gather Processor Module. This is discussed in greater depth in Chapter 31, Global Illumination. Area lights work better with hard shadow types. Soft shadows do not always produce the best results for these lights because the light is no longer being emitted from a point.
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4. Scroll through the simple sky Parameters and change the number of samples to 20 to render your Perspective view.
The quality of the shadows and the intensity has clearly improved. Let us explore in depth how a simple sky works. The simple sky light models the sky as a simple, invisible, uniform dome, (see the image below). The only control over the sampling (number of shadows) is the number of samples. You can increase the number of samples to obtain a better image.
solidThinking automatically calculates the position and the dimension of the dome in the 3D scene. The dimension of the dome depends on the dimension of your scene. In the example above, the dome is larger than the scene. If the plane is bigger, solidThinking creates a bigger dome. A bigger dome requires more rendering time. The number of samples works by creating number of samples distant light source shaders that are scattered uniformly about the hemisphere and are defined by the up vector. Typically, fewer samples can be used with soft shadows.
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Up 1
Up -1
The simple sky light is very useful with global illumination modules. This is discussed in more detail in the Chapter 31, Global Illumination. As with any other object, lights can be saved to the solidThinking Models Library.
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Chapter 32
Global Illumination
The illumination techniques illustrated in the previous chapter are suitable for single objects or exterior renderings. However, if you need to illuminate an interior scene, such as a room with a window, you must use other illumination techniques. Interior scenes require diffuseness and indirect light.
Illumination allows you to simulate how real world scenes are illuminated not only by direct light, but also by diffuse light which bounces off directly from surfaces onto other areas of the scene which are not directly illuminated. Gather is one of the technologies included in solidThinking to perform Global Illumination. Final gather simulates one bounce global illumination.
As you can see in the image below, now there are indirectly reflected lights. Here are some options that you can control to increase the Final Gather quality. number of rays minimum radius maximum radius interpolation quality
The number of rays parameter determines how many visible rays are cast into your scene. Lower values give noisier, faster, and less accurate results, while higher values give smoother, slower, and more accurate results. A typical value for this parameter might be 500. The range is from 10 to 10000. The minimum radius sets the minimum radius of each bounced ray. The dimension of the rays depends on the dimension of your scene. The maximum radius sets the maximum radius of each bounced ray. The dimension of the rays depends on the dimension of your scene. The interpolation quality can greatly affect image quality. A typical value for this parameter might be 0.3. The range is from 0.0 - 1.0.
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Now that you created a global illumination for this scene, you can add other lights to improve realism. 4. Insert an ambient light with an intensity of 0.2. 5. Insert a new light and assign a sun shader with the following parameters: intensity: 0.6 altitude: 40 azimuth: 115 shadows: on shadow type: hard 3. You can also improve the quality if you activate the new Ambient Occlusion option. Ambient Occlusion provides intelligent ambient lighting and is an addition to final gather. Unlike simple ambient lighting, which leaves things looking a little flat, ambient occlusion takes into account the (mean) distance of the point being rendered to the other objects in a scene. For example, this distance is used to reduce the ambient contribution beneath tables or in the corners of a room, while the middle of the ceiling/walls is fully lit. The transition between light and dark is smooth and controllable. 4. Open the file Final gather end01.st. 5. You can also open the file Final gather end02.st with all materials.
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Chapter 33
Materials
Materials Browser
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4. Click the Leathers-Procedural category and double-click the 05 Leather material. 5. Select the legs of the chair. From the Metals category, double-click the 02-Aluminium material. 6. Select the floor. From the Woods category, double-click the Wood_01 material. 7. Click the title bar of the Perspective view to activate it and press CTRL + R to render.
solidThinking provides many materials for you to use. You can also modify and save them in the Materials browser. The Materials browser contains backgrounds, color shaders, light shaders, and so on. It is divided into categories for easier searching as shown in the images below.
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6. Click the title bar of the Perspective view to activate it and press CTRL + R to render.
Shaders are categorized into classes defined for a specific purpose. Each material is defined using 4 shaders:
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Color Shaders
The Color shader menu includes five types of shaders: Decal shaders
2 decal shaders: decal and decal uv. See the advanced training document on decal shaders. Plain color shader
One plain shader. This shader is based on RGB colors. Wrapped image shaders
2 wrapped image shaders: wrapped image and wrapped filtered image. Wrapped image shaders are image based, where patterns are defined by bitmap images (*.bmp, *.jpg, * and *.tiff). Procedural shaders
Procedural shaders such as checker, wood, grid, and marble. Unlike bitmaps, procedural shaders are defined algorithmically and controlled by relevant parameters. Analytic industrial evaluation shaders
Analytic industrial evaluation shaders, such as absolute curvature, draft angle evaluation, gaussian curvature, geometric curvature, mean curvature and surface evaluation. See the advanced training document on decal shaders.
Decal shaders
Plain color
Wrapped image
Procedural material
Surface evaluation
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shader menu includes matte, phong, metal, or plastic reflectance shaders, plus a wide range of physically accurate shaders modelling diffuse and specular reflectance. Anisotropic reflectance, which produces effects such as mirror, glass, and metallic surfaces, is another option.
Matte
Plastic
Glass
Mirror
Anisotropic
If the seat is very bright, you can decrease the intensity of the point light or change the material reflectance. If you reduce the intensity of the point light, the entire scene will be darker (it is not the best solution in this case). Instead of decreasing the intensity of the light, it could be better to reduce the ambient factor of the seat. 5. Select the seat and set the ambient factor and diffuse factor to 0.75 as shown in the image above. The ambient factor refers to the illumination intensity of the specular highlight, or how bright it is. The diffuse factor refers to the light striking a surface and being scattered with equal intensity in all directions, with an intensity that is proportional to the angle of the incident light. Ambient factor
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Ambient 0
Ambient 0.5
Ambient 1
A lower ambient factor means less luminosity. A higher ambient factor means more luminosity.
Diffuse factor
Diffuse 0
Diffuse 0.5
Diffuse 1
Diffuse 2 Diffuse 3
A lower diffuse factor means light is scattered with equal intensity in all directions. In other words, a lower diffuse factor causes the object to look more flat. A higher diffuse factor means that light is not scattered with equal intensity in all directions.
Specular 0
Specular 0.25
Specular 0.5
The roughness determines smoothness (or specularity). The lower the roughness setting, the more spread out the specular highlight becomes. Wider specular highlights indicate a surface that is rough and is diffusing the light information more.
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Roughness 0.001
Roughness 0.005
Roughness 0.01
Low roughness settings are suitable for very shiny plastics such as bottles, while a higher roughness is suitable for fabric and matte materials as shown in the images below.
Roughness 0.3
Roughness 0.001
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If you render your perspective view, you will notice that the floor looks very dark. This is because it is now acting as a mirror and also reflecting our black background. By changing the mirror parameters, you can adjust the level of reflectivity.
A higher mirror factor and lower ambient and diffuse factors create a highly reflected material (like a mirror); while a lower mirror factor and higher ambient and diffuse factors create soft reflections.
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If you need to create a reflectance shader to apply to a car body, instead of using the conductor shader it is better to use the paint shader. The paint reflectance shader simulates the particular reflective properties of multilayer paint effects of the type used in the automotive industry.
The glass shader simulates the approximation of glass-like materials using ray tracing, supporting reflection and refraction, while the dielectric shader is a physically accurate glasslike simulation using ray tracing, supporting reflection and refraction.
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In the image above, the quality of the glass shader is adequate. If you look more closely, you will notice that the edge of the glass is black. This behavior depends basically on the refraction value. Refraction is the change in the direction of ray of light, when it enters obliquely an object of a different density from that through which it has previously moved.
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However, the transparency shader is very useful to define how transparent or opaque a surface is, and thus how much light is able to pass through it. Suppose you need to create a grid surface. Instead of modelling a complex 3D grid, you can model a simple surface and use a transparency shader instead.
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Soft shadows cannot support transparency shaders. If you need transparent shadows, you must choose hard shadows. If you need soft and transparent shadows, you must use an area light as a source light instead of point light. You can use the wrapped mask shader to create a transparency from an image instead of a procedural shader.
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You can use the wrapped bump map to create a displacement from an image instead of a procedural shader.
A texture map may either be a procedurally defined function or an image, typically scanned or pre-computed. The issue is what mapping or Texture Space shader to use and also what values to use for a correct parameter settings. To automatically create a suitable texture space for a particular surface requires some knowledge of the surface.
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2. Open the Shading panel. 3. Under Shader tree, right-click the Color class and select the wrapped image shader. 4. From the Parameters column, click Browse under file name and select the image txgrid.jpg. 5. Under Shader tree, right-click the Texture Space class and select the auto axis shader. 6. Render you perspective view. By default, all textures are stored in the following directory: Windows - C:/Program Files/solidThinking/8.5/sT/Textures. Mac - HD/Library/Application Support/solidThinking/8.5/sT/Textures. You can add other folders inside this path. You can also point to any external folder in your system and even to a local network. If you point to an image that is outside the Textures folder, you must not delete it or remove it, otherwise solidThinking will never find it. Conversely, if you create your own texture folders inside the Textures directory, solidThinking will find them even if you change your PC. In this case, you must copy and place your texture folders inside the Textures folder. As you can see in the image below, the auto axis projection mapping projects the same image using six coordinate planes to automatically decide the texture orientation. To adjust the size of the image, you must change the scale value. By default, it is set to 1.0.
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Auto axis
In this case, using the local auto axis shader, the image is mapped correctly on the cube. The local auto axis texture space is identical to auto axis, but works on the objects own local coordinate system. It is therefore straightforward when applying to geometry, which may not align with the world coordinate axes. The auto axis shader works on the global coordinate system.
Step 1: UV mapping
1. Open the file UV label 01.st. 2. Select the three surfaces. 3. Open the Shading panel. 4. Under Shader tree, right-click the Color class and select the wrapped image shader. 5. From the Parameters column, click Browse under file name and select the image EarthMap.jpg. 6. Under Shader tree, right-click the Texture Space class and select the uv label shader. 7. Render you perspective view. In the images below, the Earth map is mapped in a different way on each surface even if all surfaces have apparently the same shape. This is because the uv shader does not project the image on the surface, but adapts it to tracking the natural parametric coordinate system of the NURBS surface.
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If you observe the three surfaces in wireframe mode, you will notice that each surface is visualized differently. Let us analyze how each surface in modelled.
If you select curve 1 and switch to Edit mode, you will notice that all control points are equidistant, while curve 2, even if it has the same shaped points, are not equidistant. This is why in the second surface, the image is stretched.
The third surface is modelled using three curve entities. This means that the extruded surface has three entities. When you apply the uv label, solidThinking assigns to each entity an image and each image is stretched according to the natural parametric coordinate system of the NURBS surfaces.
So, if you need to map a surface using the uv label, you must model a single surface and all points must be equidistant. Otherwise, you can use a projection shader instead.
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Another typical issue of the uv shader are trimmed surfaces. A trimmed surface is a surface that, when rendered, is "trimmed" by curves that delimits the trimmed part. See Chapter 15 for more information.
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Chapter 34
Backgrounds
Background shaders define the color of the scene beyond the model using images or a variety of procedural effects, such as clouds or graduated color. Backgrounds are also displayed in mirror reflections. By default, the background is black. To change the background color, it is necessary to create a background shader. You can either use the background saved in the Material Library or create a new one.
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An environment background shader is a particular background that is all around the model and can take the place of complex scenery geometry. solidThinking supports the cubic environment map and spherical environment map.
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As you can see in the image above, the faucet is completely black. Backgrounds also appear in mirror reflections. This is why the faucet is black - it is reflecting the black background. Sometimes, the background shader (or any other environment shader set as a background) may not be appropriate as in this case. For this instance, you need to set a white background and an invisible background for reflection purposes. An alternative approach would be to use the ray cube background shader.
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The ray cube background shader has four arguments, each of which is a pointer to another shader. Use the environment reflection shader as the value of each of these arguments. This technique enables you to keep all the existing reflectance settings of the materials in your scene, allowing the environment background to be visible both by reflection and refraction with glass materials, for example.
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Note: Real Time + Photorealistic rendering uses Real Time shading as a preview and progressive ray tracing to produce the final rendering. Progressive rendering provides immediate feedback on the final image with fast approximation, allowing an early preview of lighting and materials in a scene. This method gives early visual feedback and allows you to decide to either interrupt the render and alter the settings, or continue until a final image is produced. After a total of 6 passes are completed you can press S to save the final image.
Purpose
This exercise illustrates how to render a region.
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