Your manager has asked you to put together a quick report on the status of the new project you're working on. He's not very CAD savvy and has asked you to include pretty pictures. You think you've read something, awhile ago, about Photoworks- a photorealistic rendering add-in for SolidWorks- but don't know if your company owns it nor do you have the time to learn it if they did. What will you do!?!
Have no fear! Screen capturing techniques are here!!
OK, all cheesiness aside, quickly grabbing screen shots of your SolidWorks parts, assemblies, or drawings is easy. So let's review some common capture techniques.
- PrntScrn- Have you seen this button on your keyboard and ever wondered what it does? Well, in Windows, PrntScrn will capture the entire screen you are working in at that time and place it on to the "Windows Clipboard." (a type of temporary area for holding "stuff") From there, in the target application (such as MS-Word or PowerPoint), use Edit, Paste or ctrl-V to then paste this content. But there is a drawback: PrntScrn captures the entire screen. And for SolidWorks, that means not only the design pane, but your toolbars, feature manager, and any other panes that might be active. Using ALT+PRNTSCRN will capture the active window or dialog box.
- File, SaveAs, .jpg- SolidWorks has one of the largest built-in collection of translators in the industry! Everything from .dwg, STEP, ACIS, IGES, and even native formats for ProE and Catia to name a few! But, did you know that you could also save a part, assembly, or drawing as a JPEG file? Yes! And best of all, it only captures the design pane (and not toolbars, etc.). This quick trick buys you a nice, 96X96dpi (dots per inch), color, screen capture in the compact and widely accepted JPEG format. But wait! There's more...
- New in SolidWorks 2007 is an easy-to-use screen capture tool called... are you ready?... Screen Capture. The icon is also very easy to understand: a older-styled shutter camera! This new tool can be accessed most readily from the View pull-down menu. Like the above technique, this too will give you a 96X96dpi image. The difference is that, unlike directly creating a .jpg, Screen Capture places the contents of the design pane onto the Windows Clipboard, which can then be pasted into the target application. One advantage this technique offers is the ability to paste into a photo editing software and saving the results as some format other than JPEG.
- Last but most certainly not least is purchasing a third-party screen capturing software such as TechSmith's SnagIt. SnagIt is an easy and fun-to-use software that allows the user to capture anything from his or her computer screen. This includes (but is not limited to) whole screens, windows, panes, and regions. And the capture can be saved in any one of many formats. (including compressed formats such as GIFs and JPEGs to larger formats such as bit maps, targa, and paintbrush to uncommon formats such as encapsulated postscript, raw, and WordPerfect) Included with SnagIt are a studio and editor that, while there are better softwares available, is a benefit since they're included for the price. TechSmith also sells video capturing software... but that's for another episode.
Now that you know that you can capture screen shots from SolidWorks, and you know a few different techniques, what can you do to appease your boss? What exactly is a pretty picture? I suggest- if it is a part or an assembly you're capturing- to make it look as "clean" as possible. And to do this, turn off such things as coordinate systems, sketches, the origin, and planes. If you are trying to make a semi-realistic looking picture, turn on the use of shadows while shaded, use "shaded without edges" as your display style, and either turn on perspective or use a SolidWorks camera. (the camera, also, is for another episode) Add realism by adding colors and textures to faces, features, bodies and parts/components. And lastly, if your video card supports it, active RealView graphics and choose a nice looking material. (or, make your own. Yes, that too is for another episode) All of these settings can be easily accessed from the View pull-down menu. See the picture below and click on it to make it larger.
I hope you've enjoyed and found useful this blog entry. We appreciate your time in reading this. If you have any comments or questions, I can be e-mailed at christopher.schaefer@gxsc.com. Stay tuned for future posts. And if there's something in particular you'd like us to report on, please let us know!
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