Photorealistic Renderings using Solidworks Models

SolidWorks is one of the main product design solid modellers. It has a built in render engine called PhotoWorks. With the release of PhotoWorks 2, rendering within SolidWorks has become more realistic and easier. In a lot of cases PhotoWorks will be the most convenient way to render your model, because you don't have to leave SolidWorks. However, sometimes you will find the need to make renders that are more realistic (or even photo-realistic), and PhotoWorks is not sufficient anymore. This is when you might consider using an external program for rendering. In this how-to, \will describe how to do this using Blender with YafRay.

Both programs are open-source software, which means you can download them for free:

• Blender (version 2.45)
• YafRay (version 0.0.9)

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Import_and_Render_a_SolidWorks_Model

Useful Link: BittBox

I find this particular link extremely helpful. It's a website called BittBox that offers up a wide variety of useful tidbits for the aspiring graphic designer. Right now he's not posting often enough to merit a daily check, but I've got it listed in my RSS feed and find something useful almost every time he updates. Sometimes it's a quick lesson on Illustrator or Photoshop, sometimes it's a cool new font he's discovered, sometimes it's free vector art to use in your own work (or any of a variety of other free bits and pieces from button designs to art brushes). Sometimes it's just a link to something that inspired him (I'm less interested in those, since his inspirations don't quite seem to mesh with my own style, but that's just me).

Check it out, there's lots to like.