You have your 3D model created, now what? You need to create all sorts of collateral based on the 3D model such as work instructions, assembly manuals and information for sales and marketing. Like most in the SOLIDWORKS ecosystem, you’ll probably turn to SOLIDWORKS Composer to do this. Composer is the only tool out there to create useful assets like images with arrows and text that are linked to the 3D model. If there’s ever a change, it will automatically update saving you from redoing any work. In this week’s Video Tech Tip, we show you how to create 360° views in SOLIDWORKS Composer.
As of 2020, 360° views in Composer are a new feature. Before, it was easy to create views or snapshots of your model but they were flat 2D views. Think of views as a snapshot or picture that saves everything about your model like its orientation and appearance as well as any collaborative actors like arrows, text or call outs. Setting up the views is most of the work in Composer – they’re what get used by the other tools like Word, PowerPoint, Illustrator or even your website.
In the past, to create 3D views you just needed to leverage the powerful animation tools and create a view using the timeline and animation keys to save the settings. This is shown in the image above.
To use the new functionality in Composer 2020 is incredibly easy! In just one click, you can export a 360° degree view of your model. Just leverage the new option added to the High-Resolution Image Workshop and in one click you can export a 360° view. The resolution is set with a defined number of images per rotation, by default it’s 720 which is an image per half degree. Upon export you have 720 images that you can use in whatever other tool you want to put it all together.
That’s the point in the workflow that Composer lives. It helps create material from the 3D model that you can use in another tool whether it is a website design tool, a document creation tool or a video editing tool.
Want to learn more about SOLIDWORKS Composer? Watch our on-demand webinar and explore all you can do with this software.
