Hi,
I am trying to model a PC power supplier model. The faces are covered by sketch pictures, but the pictures are not show up in the rendering window.
Is there a way to keep the pictures in the rendering? I am thinking I should use something like appearance, but I haven't figured out how to do that.
This is like the case for rendering a monitor with a printed screen captured from computer.
Thanks,
Simon
Decals would be the recommended method to do this but in this particular case using an appearance would work as well.
I know decals have been recommend for this, however I have always preferred using jpegs... Insert the jpegs on the Part face not in a sketch, you can drag and drop right from File Explorer. The advantages for me have been the ability to manipulate the picture, mapping, color, transparency etc.
By dragging and dropping the jpg (not in a sketch) John you are creating an appearance. You just aren't going through the appearance dialog to do it but the tools/controls and results are the same.
One of the biggest differences between appearances and decals is..........appearances repeat and decals do not. If you are filling an entire face with an image appearances work fine. If you just want to fill a portion of a face (like a logo or text on a door for example) and you don't want that logo or text to repeat than appearances don't work and decals are the better method.
Yes I understand that very well, and did a lot of them over the years, must be bumped in the head, but I would still go for the Jpeg, there are a lot of mapping options to overcome what your saying....
OK Robert Rodriguez and John Stoltzfus time for some lessons.
when creating decals to place on my machines I have always created the decal as a white part and then using sketch picture I have inserted a jpeg of the decal picture in the sketch. Some times it bleeds through the assembly, some times it doesn't show at all, and sometimes it works great. I have never figured out a better way of doing it. Now you are both indicating to just drop the jpeg on the part and not in the sketch? I guess I didn't know that would even work. Do I need to be in any extra wizard or anything? Or do I simply place the picture on a part or assembly? If I place it on the part will it carry through to the assembly? I tried decals early on and they didn't work well so I haven't used them for several years. Maybe they work now?
Adding a decal is easy.
Click the Display manager tab
Click the Decal Manager tab
Right click in the property area and choose "Add Decal"
Browse to your image
Select a faces(s) to apply it to
Adjust the mapping, rotation and size
You are finished
If you save the decal you can reuse it by dragging and dropping.
Using images in sketch pictures is really only for using them as a guide in your sketch. They do not transfer into rendering for PV360 or Visualize (or any other rendering software).
I drag the jpeg right out of File Explorer and drop them on to a face or a split line and they Render fine with 360 -
Yes, they will because by dragging and dropping you are creating an appearance which renders in PV360.
If you wanted to remove the "white" area around your text you'd want to create a decal and use a png or tiff file with an alpha. That would render fine in PV360.
If you use that jpg file as a sketch picture then it won't render in PV360.
That's correct - just wanted to make sure it's clarified for the next guy - According to some ( Rick Becker ) thinks I'm still in the Dark Side, but for me I always liked to create a part, just a thin model that represents the decals we used and then I would setup all the custom properties needed to pull into the BOM. Then I would just insert the modeled decal and mate it to the surface it needed to go to, easy to dimension etc.........
John,
This is essentially the procedure I have been using.
I had understood you were dropping the jpeg in a sketch.... So maybe I was confused - Just paste the jpeg on a face as an appearance rather then in a sketch, is what I do...
That works as well if you need the BOM info. Nothing wrong with doing it that way.
What you describe works well on a single "flat" face. It doesn't work so well when the geometry become more complex or you need your decal to span multiple faces.
This is one reason I am wanting to learn a better method. I need the decals to show in the BOM but as you have noted they do not work well if I place them on a rounded surface. I also have issues at times with them showing if I am looking at the back side of a part that has the decal on the other side.
You can just add empty parts to your assembly (with the custom property info needed) so they show up in the BOM. You can do this not just for decals but anything (instructions, manuals, paint, lubricant) anything you want to appear as a BOM item.
There area couple methods to deal with the decal showing on both sides when applied to a sphere or cylinder. First method is to try different mapping (not projection). Seconds method is to split out an area on the sphere, cylinder face.
We do use the empty parts for things like paint or lubricants and that works fine but we like to have the graphical display tied to the BOM when we can and having a decal for display and another one for the BOM would complicate that. We even model manuals or tubes of silicone and lock-tite so that they can be given a balloon in the drawing. The decals would need a similar option to be ballooned.
Complex Geometry isn't an issue as long as you can do a Split Line Curve...
Thank you both. While I have yet to have the time or need for rendering, this will be good to know going forward. For some reason I no longer remember we had problems using decals in the past so we went with the sketch picture route and it worked for decal drawings but would have problems from time to time when attempting to show the decals in assembly drawings or views.
You need to use decals.