Adding Materials and Exporting Images in AutoDesk Inventor

This is just one hub in a series of 15 hubs on using AutoDesk Inventor for 3D modeling. The index hub is here.

When all the good and useful stuff is done, it's time to impress the boss. Smooth presentation, good graphics, and quality renders are all vital. Thankfully, Inventor can help us out here. We can set materials, choose a background, and render some detailed images of our product.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to assign material to each feature of a part, or to parts as a whole. Then you'll learn how to render the assembly and see how Inventor adds detailed textures to each part. After that, backgrounds can be added, and you'll learn how to render in perspective and export the images. It's the last tutorial in the series, and it's time to see some results!

Materials

So let's start by adding some interesting materials to our shelf. This is done in the "View" tab, in the "Appearance" section. Just below the "Quarter Section View" button, there's a drop-down menu that by default says "As Material," or, in part mode, "As Body." Click on it, and you'll see the multitude of materials that Inventor has to choose from, as in Picture 1. Of course, you'll need to select a part first. If you want to do just one feature of a part, like a single extrusion, double click the part to edit it, then select a feature and change the material, as shown in Picture 3.

The version of Inventor that I'm working with (Inventor Pro 2012) has a shortcut menu to do this as well, shown in Picture 2. It's at the very top of the screen, towards the left, on the "Quick Access Menu." This can be quite handy if you do a lot of experimenting with materials.

So to get started on the shelf, double click the lamp to edit it. Change the materials of the shade, the support, and the slider it sits on, then return to the main assembly. The choices I made are shown in Picture 4.

After handling that, the rest of the assembly will be a breeze. You can make whole parts a single material, or give them different materials. I added some glass, some wood (just to see how Inventor handled the textures) and some different metals.

"Rendering"

Now we need to put the "Rendering" engine to the test. I put it in quotes because Inventor doesn't actually call it rendering, although it sure feels that way to me. To see the best quality that Inventor has to offer, go to the view tab and click on the arrow underneath "Visual Style." Choose "Realistic" to test out your new materials. You can also turn on the shadows and reflection for more quality (as well as a slower refresh rate). I came up with the image in Picture 5 as my first "rendering."

Setting a Background

To take your image one step further, set a background as is shown in Picture 6. Use the drop-down menu to the left of the material selection menu, and select one of Inventor's built-in backgrounds. I chose the empty lab, since the shelf seemed at home there with its glass and shiny aluminum. The final image looked like the on in Picture 7. To get Picture 8, I changed from "Orthographic" to "Perspective" using the menu in the middle of the "Appearance" panel.

Section Views

Picture 9 shows how to set up a section view. Click on the "Quarter Section View" button and click on the edge of the main support. I chose the offset as 2, and then clicked the green check mark. The resulting view is in Picture 10.

Exporting as an Image

If you want to use these beautiful images for a great presentation, you'll need a way to export them. Go to the "A" menu in the upper left hand of the screen, the main button where you save and open, and let your mouse hover over "Export," as seen in Picture 11. Select "Image," then choose the save location.

I have to admit that I did not use that technique for a single one of these pictures, because it doesn't show the entire screen, and the Windows "Snipping Tool" is much quicker and easier. Also, I couldn't get Inventor to export a cut-through image. If you need a section view, try the snipping tool, or try pushing "Print Screen" on your keyboard and then going to Paint and pasting.

After all that is done, you can throw it all into a fabulous presentation, show it off to your boss, and enjoy the raise. All thanks to the power of an online tutorial. And that, really, is all I have to teach you.