Photo settings

Tool(s): Photo settings

What to display

Fills

Select this option to fill surfaces.

The system fills surfaces depending on the direction of the light and the colors of each of the edges of the solid.

The basic color of the calculated color shades is based on the 3D element's pen color. The direction of lighting determines the individual shades of the basic colors. The greater the angle of incidence between a light source and a surface, the brighter the brighter the color. This also means that a greater height for a spotlight causes vertical surfaces to appear darker.

Tip: You can use Set Surface (How) to give each pen color a different surface color.

Activate Set Surface in one of the following ways

• Menu bar: Change Presentation Animation

• Toolbar: Change
• Palette: Tools Change area in the following module(s):

Animation

• Shortcut menu: Navigation Mode selected - Right mouse button

Tip: You can run a computation using fill surfaces only. This way you can quickly check for color harmony.

Edges

Select this option to generate drawing files with lines.

Results may differ considerably depending on which of the other parameters are set.

1: Edges and Hidden selected
2: Edges selected
3: Edges, Hidden, Hidden surfaces and Hidden edges selected
4: Edges and Hidden surfaces selected

Note: The computation of line files often results in overlapping lines.
You can use Combine Overlapping Lines to clean these.

Hidden Edges

Select the Hidden edges option if you want the edges hidden by other components to be visible in the final image.

Fixed edge color

You can use this option to select a color to be used to represent edges in the line drawing file.

Hidden line type

You can specify the line type for hidden edges here. This option is only available when Hidden edges is selected.

How to display

Hidden

When this option is selected, any portions of surfaces or lines hidden by other objects are excluded from calculation. This prevents surfaces from overlapping thus facilitating subsequent modifications and accelerating display of the results.

Shadows

Select this option if you want to display shadows in the calculated image.

The shadows are saved in the two drawing files generated for the fills and edges, respectively. It also displays the shadows generated together with the results of the Edges calculation in a line file.

You can use the Shadow to Hatching tool to convert the calculated shadows to hatching.

Hidden surfaces

When you select this option, the hidden surfaces of an object are also calculated. Please note that this also includes the edges of the surfaces and shadows.

In the case of line drawing files with the Hidden edges option, it is a good idea to select the Hidden surfaces option, too. Otherwise, the hidden edges are not calculated. This option can usually be deactivated for performance reasons if, for example, only fills and shadows are calculated (see illustration for Edges).

Reset

This is where you can reset the settings in the Photo Settings dialog box to their defaults (Fills, Hidden and Shadows).

Tip: Experiment with the wide range of possible settings.
Some tried and tested combinations:

• Fills, Hidden and Shadows (photo with shadows; drawing file with surface model)
• Fills, Edges and Hidden (photo without shadows, but with lines at the visible edges; drawing file with surface model and drawing file with lines).
• Edges and Hidden (same as hidden line image; drawing file with lines).
• Edges, Hidden edges, Hidden and Hidden surfaces (same as hidden line image with dashed hidden lines; drawing file with lines).