Autodesk® Showcase® is included in most of the Autodesk Design and Creation Suites 2014 editions.
It is designed to transform digital designs into interactive walk-throughs, as well as design reviews with real time realistic rendering. I will show you how easy it is to use and how it can enhance your presentation.
Starting from left to right on the menu, you will start with the Open icon and progress through the menu ending with the Publish icon. You can open most of the popular CAD file extensions (natively) and CAD transfer files such as: .igs, .stp and .stl. Once you have the file open, click on Lighting Environments & Background to pick your scenery.
You can click on any 1 of the 33 different indoor and outdoor environments in Showcase. On the upper right hand corner you also have the standard View Cube and Navigation Bar to adjust the viewing angle and zoom.
As you rotate the viewing angle, the background and shadow will adjust in real-time. I encourage you to try all of environments to see which best fits your presentation. You can quickly and easily change the environment at any time by clicking on any of the environment icons.
Next is the Adjust Lighting command. To change the brightness and the lighting angle, click on the Lighting or Shadow icon and slide the bar to adjust.
Now, click on the Visual Styles icon to change the rendering of the subject. There are 5 different styles. You can click Library at the bottom right to show the other options on the heads-up display at the top left.
We are almost there. Click on the Look icon to change the material of your design and to create snapshots of the different viewing angles. If you click on Shots and Materials on the lower right, the heads-up display will pop up and show you the different materials and shots as shown on the left.
If you want to change the material of a part, click on the part on the display screen. To select multiple parts, keep the Shift button down on your keyboard then select. Now click on one of the many materials as shown on the left. In this example, I selected both the rear and front housing of the differential assembly and changed them to the orange car paint finish. There are hundreds of materials you can choose from, or you can create your own custom material. You can quickly and easily change each part.
In the Shots menu, you can click on Create, then Still, Cinematic or Start to End to create the pictures and movie that you want. It’s really hard to mess up. I encourage you to try all of these and go over the Properties to make adjustments.
Once you are done with the Look feature, you are ready to publish your presentation to an image, movie, YouTube or on your website.
There are other features in the pull down menu such as edit to position your subject or to create a storyboard to present multiple visualization of your design. I hope this will encourage you to try Showcase as the tool of choice to present your next design.
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