MODULE-2 ADVANCED TO AUTOCAD (RENDERING)

EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOME

M O D U L E for CADD-2
1.1. Utilized the Visual Tab for AutoCAD Rendering
1.2. Familiarize AutoCAD commands use for Rendering.
1.3. Proper setting of lights, sun and location and materials for rendering.
1.4. Observe safety reminder on plug-in the laptop or personal computer.
ADVANCED TO AUTOCAD (RENDERING)

In this Module, you’ll find a comprehensive technical AutoCAD review

which includes knowledge about the AutoCAD 3D Rendering that you will need
when creating 3D drawings with realistic presentation using AutoCAD program.

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RENDERING

3D rendering of the 3d model would be appealing to the observer and would contribute to the
understanding of the design.

Rendering is a method of converting your drawing into realistic representation of the objects.
These covers changing the material of the drawing or parts of the drawing to meet its actual
appearance, as well as combining lighting and shadows to give the image further visual appeal.
Several settings can be adjusted to meet the desired result that would be pleasing to see.

Accessing the Visualization Tools Tab

To start rendering, your AutoCAD should show the Visualize Tools Tab. This is done by
rightclicking the tab as shown below.

This will display the tools that can be used for rendering in AutoCAD.

Materials

Materials will give your drawings a realistic appearance.

Materials will give your drawings a realistic appearance.

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Different materials are available and properties can be adjusted to improve visualization.

Reference: AutoCAD User’s Guide

https://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2020/ENU/?guid=GUID-F1EC9EC0-C7B1-4490-AEE5-
CC3B6B189AED

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LIGHTING

Default Lighting

When there are no lights in a scene, the scene is rendered with default lighting. Default
lighting is derived from one or two distant light sources that follow the viewpoint as you orbit
around the model. All faces in the model are illuminated so that they are visually discernible. You
can adjust the exposure of the rendered image, but you do not need to create or place lights yourself.

When you place user-defined lights or enable sunlight, you can optionally disable default
lighting. Default lighting is set per viewport, and it is recommended to disable default lighting when
user-defined lights are placed in a scene.

Photometric Lighting

You add lights to give a scene a natural and realistic appearance. Lighting enhances the clarity
and three-dimensionality of a scene. Photometric lights use photometric (light energy) values that
enable you to define lights more accurately as they would be in the real world. You can create lights
with various distribution and color characteristics, or import specific photometric files available from
lighting manufacturers.

Photometric lights can use an Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) photometric data file
format published by lighting manufacturers. By using the IES data files published by a manufacturer,
you can visualize commercially available lighting in your model. Then you can experiment with
different fixtures, and by varying the light intensity and color temperature, you can design a lighting
system that produces the results you want.

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Sun and Sky

The sun is a special light available as part of the photometric workflow and is similar to a
distant light. The angle of the sun is defined by the geographic location that you specify for the model
and by the date and time of day that you specify. The intensity and color emitted by the sun can be
adjusted to reflect different times of day and atmospheric conditions. The sun and sky are the primary
sources of natural illumination. With sun and sky simulation, you can adjust their properties and enable
sky illumination (through the sky background feature). The sky background feature adds soft, subtle
lighting effects caused by the lighting interactions between the sun and the atmosphere.

Standard Lighting

For more creative control over lighting, you can use standard lights to illuminate your model.
You can create point lights, spotlights, and distant lights to achieve the effects you want. You can
move or rotate lights with grip editing, turn them on or off, and change properties such as color and
intensity. The effects of changes are visible in the viewport in real-time.

Spotlights and point lights are each represented by glyphs (symbols used to indicate the
position and direction of the light). Distant lights are not represented by glyphs in the drawing because
they do not have a discrete position and affect the entire scene. You can turn the display of light glyphs
on or off while you work, and specify whether light glyphs should be plotted. By default, light glyphs
are not plotted.

Note: Starting with AutoCAD 2016-based products, all standard lights are calculated as photometric
lights. It is recommended to update all standard lights in a scene to photometric lights.

Luminary Assemblies
Light fixtures can be represented by luminary assemblies. A luminary assembly is created by
embedding photometric lights in blocks that also contain geometry. Self-illuminating materials are
often assigned to the geometry of a luminary assembly to give the appearance that the objects in the
assembly are glowing.

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Access to Lighting

Point Lights

A normal point light does not target an object, but illuminates everything around it. Point
lights can be used for general lighting effects and simulate lighting sources such as candles and light
bulbs.

A target point light has additional target properties so it can be directed to an object. It can
also be created from a point light by changing the Targeted property of the point light from No to Yes.

In the standard lighting workflow, you can set a point light manually so its intensity diminishes
with respect to distance either linearly, according to the inverse square of the distance, or not at all.
By default, the attenuation is set to None.

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Note: Starting with AutoCAD 2016-based products, all standard lights are calculated as photometric
lights. It is recommended to update all standard lights in a scene to photometric lights.

Point Lights in Photometric Workflow

A point light can have photometric distribution properties. The attenuation for a photometric point
light is always set to inverse square.

When the LIGHTINGUNITS system variable is set to 1 (American units) or 2 (International SI

units) for photometric lighting, additional properties are available for a point light. The following
photometric properties can be set via the Properties palette:

 Lamp Intensity. Specifies the inherent brightness of the light. Specifies the intensity, flux
or illuminance of the lamp.
 Resulting Intensity. Gives the final brightness of the light. (Product of lamp intensity and
intensity factor. Read-only.)
 Lamp Color. Specifies the inherent color of the light in Kelvin temperature or standard.
 Resulting Color. Gives the final color of the light. This is determined by a combination of
the filter and lamp colors. (Product of filter and lamp color. Read-only.)

When the drawing lighting units are photometric, the attenuation type property becomes disabled.
Photometric lights have fixed, inverse-square attenuation.

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The following image is an example of a photometric point light with the photometric properties
outlined on the Properties palette:

Note: In the legacy standard lighting workflow, you can set a point light manually so its intensity
diminishes with respect to distance either linearly, according to the inverse square of the distance, or
not at all. By default, the attenuation is set to None.

Spotlights

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A spotlight distribution casts a focused beam of light like a flashlight, a follow spot in a theater, or a
headlight. A spotlight emits a directional cone of light. You can control the direction of the light and
the size of the cone.

In the standard lighting workflow, a spotlight can be manually set to attenuate its intensity with
distance. However, a spotlight's intensity will also always attenuate based on the angle relative to the
spot's target vector. This attenuation is controlled by the hotspot and falloff angles of the spotlight.
Spotlights are useful for highlighting specific features and areas in your model.

Note: Starting with AutoCAD 2016-based products, all standard lights are calculated as
photometric lights. It is recommended to update all standard lights in a scene to photometric
lights.

Spotlights in Photometric Workflow

A spotlight can have photometric distribution properties. The attenuation for a photometric spotlight
is always set to inverse square.

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When the LIGHTINGUNITS system variable is set to 1 (American units) or 2 (International SI

units) for photometric lighting, additional properties are available for a spotlight. The following
photometric properties can be set via the Properties palette:

 Lamp Intensity. Specifies the inherent brightness of the light. Specifies the intensity, flux,
or illuminance of the lamp.
 Resulting Intensity. Gives the final brightness of the light. (Product of lamp intensity and
intensity factor. Read-only.)
 Lamp Color. Specifies the inherent color of the light in Kelvin temperature or standard.
 Resulting Color. Gives the final color of the light. This is determined by a combination of
the filter and lamp color. (Product of filter and lamp color. Read-only.)

Note: When the drawing lighting units are photometric, the attenuation type property becomes
disabled. Photometric lights have fixed, inverse-square attenuation. The hotspot falloff attenuation in
the rendered image varies from standard lighting, as it uses a different mathematical basis.

The following image is an example of a photometric spotlight with the photometric properties
outlined on the Properties palette:

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Weblights

A weblight (web) is a 3D representation of the light intensity distribution of a light source.

Weblights can be used to represent anisotropic (non-uniform) light distributions derived from data
provided by manufacturers of real-world lights. This gives a far more precise representation of the
rendered light than either a spotlight or point light is capable of.

This directional light distribution information is stored in a photometric data file in the IES
format using the IES LM-63-1991 standard file format for photometric data.

To describe the directional distribution of the light emitted by a source, the source is
approximated by a point light placed at its photometric center. With this approximation, the
distribution is characterized as a function of the outgoing direction only. The luminous intensity of the
source for a predetermined set of horizontal and vertical angles is provided, and the system can
compute the luminous intensity along an arbitrary direction by interpolation.

Note: Web distribution is used only in rendered images. Weblights are approximated as point lights
in the viewport.

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Goniometric Diagrams
Photometric data is often depicted using a goniometric diagram.

Goniometric diagram of a web distribution

This type of diagram visually represents how the luminous intensity of a source varies with the
vertical angle. However, the horizontal angle is fixed and, unless the distribution is axially symmetric,
more than one goniometric diagram may be needed to describe the complete distribution.

Photometric Webs

The photometric web is a three-dimensional representation of the light distribution. It extends the
goniometric diagram to three dimensions, so that the dependencies of the luminous intensity on both the
vertical and horizontal angles can be examined simultaneously. The center of the photometric web
represents the center of the light object.

The luminous intensity in any given direction is proportional to the distance between this web
and the photometric center, measured along a line leaving the center in the specified direction.

Example of Isotropic distribution

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A sphere centered around the origin is a representation of an isotropic distribution. All the points
in the diagram are equidistant from the center and therefore light is emitted equally in all directions.

Example of Ellipsoidal distribution

In this example, the points in the negative Z direction are the same distance from the origin as
the corresponding points in the positive Z direction, so the same amount of light shines upward and
downward. No point has a very large X or Y component, either positive or negative, so less light is cast
laterally from the light source.

DISTANT LIGHT

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Distant lights can be useful for applying uniform lighting to a scene, but they can make a scene
appear washed out or too light.

Note: Starting with AutoCAD 2016-based products, all standard lights are calculated as photometric
lights. It is recommended to update all standard lights in a scene to photometric lights.

1. Click Visualize tab Lights panel (expanded) Lighting Units drop-down American

Lighting Units Find or International Lighting Units Find.

Photometric lighting is enabled, and American or International lighting units is set.

2. Click Visualize tab Lights panel Create Light drop-down Distant. Find
3. Specify a location for the distant light.
4. Specify a direction for the distant light.
5. At the Command prompt, enter n and enter a name.
This name appears in the Properties and Lights in Model palettes.
You can continue to specify properties by entering options, or you can exit and set properties
interactively. When you use the interactive method, you can see the results of your changes
as you work.

6. Press Enter to exit the command.

A distant light is not displayed as a light glyph. To change the properties of a distant light:

 At the Command prompt, enter lightlist.

 In the Lights in Model palette, double click the distant light which you want to
modify.
 In the Properties palette, change the color and other properties of the distant light.

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BACKGROUND AND SHADOWS

Backgrounds
You can use a solid color, a gradient fill, an image, the sun & sky, or an image-based lighting (IBL)
map as a background in the viewport in any 3D visual style, even one that does not shade objects.
When Background is set to On in the current visual style, the background is displayed.

To use a background, you can

 First create a named view with a background and set the named view as current in the
viewport.
 Display the Background dialog box (BACKGROUND command) and set a background.
 Display the Render Environment & Exposure palette (RENDERENVIRONMENT
command), and use IBL or a custom background.

Ground Shadows

Shaded objects in a viewport can display shadows.

 Ground shadows are shadows that objects cast on the ground.

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Full Shadows

 Mapped object shadows or full shadows are shadows cast by objects onto other objects.

The lighting in the viewport must be from user-created lights or the sun for mapped object
shadows to be displayed. Where shadows overlap, they appear darker.

Note: To display mapped object shadows or full shadows, hardware acceleration is required.

Displaying shadows can slow performance when viewing a 3D model. You can turn off
shadows in the current visual style while you work and turn them back on when you need them.

Note: Starting with AutoCAD 2016-based products, all lights generate and all objects cast and receive
shadows when rendering.

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No Shadows

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Sun and Sky

Sun and sky is a special light that can specify the light in a certain location and time as a
representation of the actual sun. This would consider the intensity and color of the sun on different
times of the day and atmospheric conditions and serves as a natural illumination.

COMMANDS FOR CREATING SUN LIGHTS

Use these commands and system variables to create and adjust lights simulating the sun.

Commands

 DISTANTLIGHT (Command)
 GEOGRAPHICLOCATION (Command)
 GEOREMOVE (Command)
 SUNPROPERTIES (Command)
 SUNPROPERTIESCLOSE (Command)
System Variables

 LATITUDE (System Variable)

 LONGITUDE (System Variable)
 NORTHDIRECTION (System Variable)
 SKYSTATUS (System Variable)
 SUNPROPERTIESSTATE (System Variable)
 SUNSTATUS (System Variable)
 TIMEZONE (System Variable)

Reference: AutoCAD User’s Guide https://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2020/ENU/?guid=GUID-

F1EC9EC0-C7B1-4490-AEE5- CC3B6B189AED

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A. Directions:
1. Apply materials and rendering to 3D Exercises.
(2D drawing references to be given by instructor during synchronous meeting.)
2. Apply Anipath (walkthrough animation)
Sample object with render

RUBRICS

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A. Directions: Draw the 3D of the given plan and furniture below. Apply appropriate
materials and rendering. Use A4 template and appropriate scale factor.

Sample rendering #1

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Sample rendering #2

Sample rendering #3

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References:
Mangubat, Reynaldo P., (2017) CBLM AutoCAD Instructional Module, Technical Drafting
NCII

Leach, James A. (2000) AutoCAD 2000 Instructor 1st Edition, Autodesk registered Author
Publisher & McGraw Hill Book Co. New York
CAD Exercises Reference
Engineering Department, (2020) AutoCAD Module, BATSTATEU ALANGILAN
Alangilan,Batangas City

AutoCAD User’s Guide

http://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2020/ENU/?guid=GUID-E6D3896C-AF39-4F5C-
A57CCACE2A1117F9
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/gettingstarted/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/20
19/ENU/AutoCAD-Core/files/GUID-072D3942-A308- 455C-8A75-8E63FB62FA4C-htm.html

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learnexplore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2020/ENU
/AutoCAD-Core/files/GUID-F9113233-6798- 4F5C-9A9F-7BA41CFA2533-htm.html
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learnexplore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2020/ENU
/AutoCAD-Core/files/GUID-2391CE97-3794- 402C-8BC1-E2DCB452DD13-htm.html
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learnexplore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2020/ENU
/AutoCAD-Core/files/GUID-0A041818-2E32- 4212-A3D8-CE0361C3D229-htm.html
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learnexplore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2020/ENU
/AutoCAD-Core/files/GUID-0A041818-2E32- 4212-A3D8-CE0361C3D229-htm.html
https://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2020/ENU/?guid=GUID-F1EC9EC0-C7B1-4490-AEE5-
CC3B6B189AED

Reference Plan for Evaluation

MICROCADD

Module Creator/Curator: Mr. Reynaldo P. Mangubat, LPT, MAEd, TMC1

Template & Layout Designer: Mr. Reynaldo P. Mangubat,

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