Comp102E ILK Week8 – Part 3c

Applying Materials to 3D Solid Objects (and

Surfaces)
Have your 3D solids ready.

Or you can create a 3D model of a drinking glass...

Create the profile of the drinking glass on the FRONT UCS:

We want to be precise with each line and arc to create a solid model of an elegant cylindrical drinking glass...of your
very own design.

Create: GLASS layer, color CYAN; GUIDE layer, color WHITE

Make the GUIDE layer current
Switch to FRONT UCS, PLAN* VIEW, set ORTHO ON

* 1. enter PLAN
2. enter

The profile:

1. Enter LINE
2. Click for the start point (anywhere you want)
3. Move the crosshairs to the right (+X direction), and enter 30
4. Move the crosshairs upward (+Y direction), and enter 150
5. Enter

You should have this output:

6. Enter OFFSET
7. Enter 5
8. Select the vertical line and click on the left (of the vertical line)
9. Enter OFFSET
10. Enter 10
11. Select the horizontal line and click above (the horizontal line)
12. Enter OFFSET
13. Enter 3
14. Select the horizontal line (again) and click above (the horizontal line)
15. Connect the two left endpoints of the top and bottom horizontal lines with a
vertical line

You will have this development:

16. Enter FILLET

17. Click the two top endpoints of the vertical lines

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18. Enter ARC
19. Click on the start point indicated in the image on the right
20. Enter E
21. Click on the endpoint indicated in the image on the right
22. Enter D
23. Move the crosshairs to the right (+X direction) arc start point
24. Click on that location

arc endpoint

We will create a fillet on the (interior) angle formed by the left vertical line and the top horizontal line, indicated
by the circle in the image below.

25. Enter FILLET

26. Enter R
27. Enter 10
28. Click at the points indicated in the image on the right, or
anywhere near their intersection.

We will create a fillet on the (exterior) angle formed by the right vertical line and the bottom horizontal line

29. Enter FILLET

30. Enter R
31. Enter 3
32. Click at the points indicated in the image on the right, or
anywhere near their intersection.

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 We will trim excess line intersected by the arc at the base

33. Enter TRIM

34. Select the arc as the cutting edge and confirm delete this line
35. Click on the lines at the point indicated by the arrows on the
image on the right
36. Enter (to end TRIM command)
37. Delete the interior horizontal line

Here’s the geometry at the base:

Trim these
parts

One last thing, we need to apply FILLET on the intersection of the bottom
arc and the line segment, encircled on the left image. This action will
apply FILLET remove that sharp edge so our profile for REVOLVE is smooth.
here

1. Enter FILLET
2. Enter R
3. Enter 5
4. Click near the endpoints of
the two arcs near the intersections

filleted edge

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Now, we need to join all segments into one entity. We can do this by converting these arcs and lines to polylines.

1. Enter PE
2. Enter M
3. Select all segments (all 9 of them)
4. Confirm selection set
5. Confirm conversion to polyline
6. Select J (for Join option)
7. Confirm join
8. Enter or Confirm (to end PEDIT)

Now, we have our polyline profile for the dinking glass 

We will use REVOLVE to create the 3D solid.

Switch to WORLD UCS, SE Isometric view, Realistic

First, let us draw a vertical line from the left corner of the base, as the axis
of revolution.
Then proceed with REVOLVE command.

Make the GLASS layer current.

1. Enter REV
axis of 2. Select the profile
revolution 3. Enter O (for Object option)
4. Select the vertical line
5. Confirm 360 revolution

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Your 3D model looks like this:

Turn the GUIDE layer OFF:

2D Wireframe visual style:

Open the Materials Library

On the command window, type RMAT and hit enter.

The Materials Browser Palette will be opened. Just dock it beside the Properties pane.

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Now, we will apply glass material to our solid. In the materials library, there are preset material setting ready to use. Let
us search for “glass”. Just type glass in the search box and hit enter.

Sample materials with “glass” properties will be displayed. Let us browse for Clear – White material.

Now, drag the material swatch to the solid model to apply the selected material.

And the output will be:

To have a clearer visual output, turn the GRID OFF

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You have your elegant cylindrical drinking glass, realistic transparent / translucent glass (Clear – White).

If you select other glass material samples...(just drag a material from the browser to the solid model)

Clear – Yellow: Clear – Amber Frosted – Blue Semi-Transparent – White

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OR YOU CAN HAVE METAL materials...

Anodized – Blue: Aluminum Frame – Copper – Polished Foil – Gold

Painted White

Glazed – Firebrick: Metal – Polished Diamond Plate Rust

Standing Seam Copper

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Or most unusual materials you can imagine...

Cobble Stone – Grass – LED Green – ON Riverstone – Blue

Glazed Multicolor Bermuda

I did a 3D solid model of a coffee mug...

The handle was created using LOFT.

Rendered image:

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And lighted candles (with point lights):

Rendered image (with full shadow, medium quality render):

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mirror material

picture
background

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Render solids in realism or what is termed as photorealism (see my previous examples of the coffee mug and the lighted
candles).

You may load the Render toolbar by accessing it through Tools  Toolbars  AutoCAD Render

You can also find Render through the Ribbon

You can readily render a solid model in AutoCAD using default settings. Default settings include universal lighting,
medium quality picture composition, materials and texture off, global illumination off, etc.

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Say, if you have a cube, sphere and cone as 3D models, and active Render command

Model space: Rendered image: (default settings)

For better rendering operations, you also want to apply materials and texture to your solid models by accessing the
materials library through Materials Browser Palette, or by typing RMAT in the command windpws

Or simply type RMAT in the command window and hit enter.

Some materials have textures (image on the left) that includes

actual “bumps”, the depth of the grooves.

Anyway, you may want to tweak with render settings, such as the
lighting (assigning lights), shadow, sun settings, sky background,
global illumination, and some environmental elements.

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Let us experiment with the sun and sky settings. We know that the sun is a huge light source that illuminates everything,
directly or indirectly (reflected light/photons). The sky will also add to this lighting, and by adding sky background and
the illumination - the diffusion of light from the sun to the atmosphere – will have a significant effect to your objects
during rendering.

So, instead of using the default AutoCAD lighting, let us set the sun as the light source. On the Ribbon, Render tab,
switch on the Sun Status. When the sun is ON, AutoCAD will ask you to turn the Default Lighting OFF, so agree to that.

Compare the Sun lighting: To Default lighting:

On the previous image, left, the time is set to 3:00 PM, the date is 9/21/2020... therefore, the lighting effect.

If we will adjust the time (move the slider), the lighting on your model will update in real time:

At 7:24 am: (too early) at 9:02 am: (just fine) at 12:15 noon: (sun power)

and even at 5:07pm sunset:

You can also add shadow to your scene.

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At 1:30 pm, with Ground Shadow active, the scene will look like this:

You can have more settings on the Sun Property by clicking

on the small arrow just right the label “Sun and Location”

To appreciate the shadow settings, we will add a platform

under the solids (a rectangular box).

Now that we have the box underneath, and if we activate Render, the resulting image will be:

You may want to adjust the sun effect for a more favourable
results, according to your standards. Plus, you can adjust the
Render properties such as Exposure, Contrast, Fog, etc. The
more settings you activate, the longer the render time. Also
your system specifications/speed is also a big factor during
rendering, especially in High and Presentation render quality.
The default render quality is set to Medium.

Further adjustments can make big change...rendering time 2 min, 40 sec

By now, you can try to compose your own picture...of the

solid models in AutoCAD...perhaps a garden, or a theme
park...

For a more detailed discussion on Rendering, you can always refer to the AutoCAD Help interface.

You have to dedicate an ample amount of your time to be familiar with AutoCAD render (materials and lighting) to get
things more naturally “lifelike”.

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This rendering took 9 min, 23 sec.
(maybe its the Bermuda grass texture, and whatnot...)

See the reflections on the surfaces of the solids, and the illumination coming from the reflection of the light on all surfaces
and diffused.

And this is an example of how to manipulate Text in AutoCAD. The text was converted to a profile, used SWEEP to
create a curved model, and materials were applied.

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Challenge:

Create a 3D solid model theme / scenario, apply material(s), and render using
default settings, or your very own render settings.

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