Using Other Rendering Output Options


Throughout this chapter, you have been rendering to the AutoCAD drawing area. You can also render to a file, which enables you to recall the image at any time in any application, or you can render to the Render window. From there, you have a number of options for working with the rendered image.

Rendering to the Render Window

The Render window lets you control the resolution and color depth of your image. It also lets you save the images that you render in the Windows .bmp format. Another advantage of the Render window is that you can render several views and then compare them before you decide which ones to save.

Follow these steps to render an image to the Render window:

  1. Open the Render dialog box and then select Render Window from the Destination drop- down list near the bottom of the dialog box.

  2. Click Render. After a moment the Render window appears. It then takes a minute or two before the image finishes rendering and appears in the window.

Notice that the image is within its own window. If you render another view, that view will also appear in its own window, leaving the previous rendering undisturbed. You can choose File   Save in the Render window to save the file as a .bmp file for later editing or printing, or you can print directly from the Render window. You can also use the Render window to cut and paste the image to another application or to view other files in the .bmp format.

To set the size of renderings , choose File   Options in the Render window to open the Windows Render Options dialog box (see Figure 17.32). Here, you can choose from two standard sizes or enter a custom size for your rendering. You can also choose between 8-bit (256 colors) and 24-bit (16 million colors) color depth. Changes to these settings don't take effect until you render another view.


Figure 17.32: The Windows Render Options dialog box

Rendering Directly to a File

Rendering to the Render window enables you to view and compare your views before you save them. However, you can save your views only in the .bmp format. If you plan to further edit the image in an image-processing program, this might not be a problem. But if you want to use your image file with a program that requires a specific file format, you probably want to render directly to a file. Here's how it's done:

  1. Open the Render dialog box and then select File in the Destination button group in the lower middle of the dialog box.

  2. Choose More Options at the bottom of the Destination button group to open the File Output Configuration dialog box.

    click to expand
  3. Click the File Type drop-down list to see the options. You can save your image in BMP, PCX, PostScript, TGA, or TIFF format. You might also notice the other options in the dialog box, such as color depth, resolution, and compression. Not all these options are available for all the file types. For example, GIF, BMP, and PCX are limited to 256 colors, so the other color options will not apply to these files.

  4. Click OK to return to the Render dialog box, and then click the Render button. The Rendering File dialog box opens, prompting you for a filename for your image.

  5. Enter Facade1. AutoCAD adds the filename extension for you.

  6. Click OK, and AutoCAD proceeds to render to the file. As AutoCAD renders to the file, the command line tells you how much of the image has been rendered.




Mastering AutoCAD 2005 and AutoCAD LT 2005
Mastering AutoCAD 2005 and AutoCAD LT 2005
ISBN: 0782143407
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 261
Authors: George Omura

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