CAD Rendering Tips

AutoCAD may not have the best or easiest rendering engine, but it can do the job. January 10, 2006

Question
How would ACAD render a high quality image to size 15"x10.25" at 300dpi?

Forum Responses
(CAD Forum)
From contributor M:
In paper space, set your paper size to whatever size you want from page setup manager. Draw viewport. Double click in it, size your object as you desire. Then render it. If you want really good results, AutoCAD does not have those capabilities. You can transfer your file in to VIZ or 3D Maxx and render it there.

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From contributor S:
If you are talking about rendering a 3D model, AutoCAD actually has a very good rendering engine. The image below is a rendering I did in plain old AutoCAD 2002. It takes a lot of practice and patience to master rendering in AutoCAD (the Acad help file is a very good source). Once you have your 3D object, the basic commands you need to master are Render, Rmat, 3dorbit and Light to achieve good results.

As far as getting the image to size to 15” x 10.25” at 300dpi, unfortunately you will need to render to a file (preferably a .tiff for printing) and use an imaging program like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to change your dpi to 300 and resize the image to a printable size like you mention. This is because AutoCAD will render pixels only (e.g. 1600 x 1200) at a dpi of 72, so an imaging program is required to adjust to the format you are looking for.

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From contributor K:
I agree with the above that although ACAD does not have the best rendering capabilities out there, the renderings give a more than adequate representation for visualization purposes most of the time, and are fairly easy to accomplish . Here is a low resolution sample of ours.

Click here for full size image

Click here for full size image