PhotoWorks

PhotoWorks™ software is a best-in-class rendering solution for creating photorealistic images from 3D CAD models. Add impact to presentations and proposals with the only rendering software fully integrated with SolidWorks®, the standard in 3D mechanical cad software.

Generate compelling images for presentations and proposals

Why settle for standard shaded views of your parts and assemblies when you could be communicating design concepts more powerfully with photorealistic images? Enjoy unmatched ease-of-use. PhotoWorks Studio lets you quickly and easily create photorealistic images. Select from five predefined scenes complete with background and lighting, designate the desired image quality and brightness, and then render your image.

Create advanced visual effects

Generate photorealistic images of 3D models easily using commands available on the PhotoWorks menu and toolbar. PhotoWorks software is built on mental ray®, the leading high-performance rendering engine. The software includes an extensive library of materials and textures, user-defined lighting and shadows,
background scenery, and more. Select appropriate material characteristics for your SolidWorks parts and assemblies. Preview a variety of materials and settings before applying them to the model. Set the background, lighting, and scenery conditions.

Combine with SolidWorks Animator to create photorealistic rendered animations

Reduce prototyping costs and cut time-to-market. PhotoWorks release 2 lets you demonstrate how your design will look without expensive mock-ups, prototypes, or studio photo sessions. Speed review cycles, market product concepts before manufacturing even begins, create images for sales and service documentation, and reduce time-to-market.

Materials

• Choose materials from a wide selection of built-in libraries of predefined metals,
woods, stones, plastics, and other textured material types.
• Define or modify existing material properties, including surface color, reflectance,
transparency, roughness, and texture-mapping.
• Apply materials to entire parts, features, or individual faces, allowing multiple assignments
per part.
• Preview material, scenery, and light selection to reduce rendering time.
• Select displacement properties to give materials an irregular or indented appearance.
Decals
• Create and apply custom labels or artwork to products and packaging.
• Interactively size, position, and rotate individual decals.
• Overlay multiple decals onto any SolidWorks part, feature, or face.
SolidWorks Integration
• Take advantage of full support for SolidWorks models, including section views and
exploded assemblies.
• Create realistic camera views complete with depth of field, perspective, and field
of view.

Lights and shadows

• Control shadows easily, including those showing through transparent surfaces.
• Create realistic shafts of light with fog lighting.

Background/scenery

• Create photo studio-style backdrops to enhance the display of SolidWorks parts and assemblies.
• Preview, resize, and reposition background scenery.
• Apply predefined scenes, including lights, backgrounds, and scenery.
• Simulate environments in which products will be used, such as under a blue sky with light cloud cover or in an industrial setting.
• Import backgrounds from standard image-format files (JPEG, TARGA, TIFF, BMP,
PNG and HDR).

Rendering controls

• Enhance realism with advanced rendering options such as indirect illumination, caustics, and global illumination.
• Preview shaded renderings with texture mapping, ideal for scene composition.
• Select “on demand” ray-tracing for reflective and transparent materials.
• Improve image quality by smoothing areas of high contrast and eliminating “jaggies” along silhouette edges utilizing adaptive antialiasing.
• Use contour rendering to highlight edge contours or show edges of parts that are otherwise hidden.
Image output
• To window: Output rendered images to the SolidWorks window, or use Interactive

Rendering mode for fast, efficient on-screen preview

• To file: Render images to file at user-defined output resolution as 24-bit PostScript®,
JPEG, TARGA, TIFF, BMP, EPS, ALIAS, CT, MI, PIC, PPM, QNTNTSC, QNTPAL, RGB,
RLA, or RLB.
• To printer: Print rendered images directly from within SolidWorks software; resize the
image to cover the entire printed output area while maintaining aspect ratio if desired.

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