Book Image

Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design

By : JOAO ANTONIO C DOS SANTOS
Book Image

Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design

By: JOAO ANTONIO C DOS SANTOS

Overview of this book

AutoCAD is a computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting software application. AutoCAD supports both 2D and 3D formats. AutoCAD is used in a range of industries and is utilized by architects, project managers, and engineers, among others."Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design" will take you beyond the 2D frontier and help you create accurate 3D models that simulate reality. This book is crammed full of creative and practical tutorials which will help you master the third dimension. From exercises on coordinate systems to creating solids and surfaces from 2D, you will wonder how you ever designed without this resource by your side."Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design" is full of hands-on studies and projects that will help develop your 3D skills. Starting from the assumption of only a very basic knowledge of AutoCAD, this book will help you master 3D visualization and coordinate systems, create 3D models from 2D drawings, and from basic shapes, measure volumes, and other information, obtain 2D construction drawings from 3D models as well as how to apply lights and materials to get photorealistic images.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Autodesk AutoCAD 2013 Practical 3D Drafting and Design
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Scene illumination


We are going to see how to add light to scenes, making a distinction between natural lighting, from the Sun and sky simulation, and artificial lighting, with point lights, spot lights, distant lights, and web lights (with IES file information).

Default lighting

Before adding any light, AutoCAD applies default lighting, consisting of two distant lights parallel to the viewing direction. When orbiting the view, this default lighting follows. That's why if we make a render without applied lights, the model can be seen without shadows, which is unrealistic.

When we create the first light or activate the Sun light, AutoCAD prompts for turning off the default lighting. With lights applied, the DEFAULTLIGHTING variable controls which illumination will be used in the current viewport: 0 to applied lights and 1 to default lighting. This variable does not affect renderings.

Generic and photometric lighting

AutoCAD can calculate indirect lighting, thus adding realism to the scene, but...