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SolidWorks is known for it’s exceptional 3D design functionality, but what if you want to take some of those amazing products you’ve created and get them printed for a display, brochure or screenprinted t-shirt? You can get a print quality image straight from SolidWorks and it’s simple as saving a file.
Technical stuff
Typically a design department for a print shop or screen printer will need a file that is at least 200 dpi (dots per inch), which indicates the image resolution. the higher the dpi the higher the resolution. A vector (property-based) image is usually preferred, but you’ll only get a raster (pixel-based) image out of SolidWorks so dpi is important. Now, let’s get started.
Setting up your model
Say you want to get your favorite flange bearing printed on a t-shirt. To get a really good graphic out of SolidWorks you want to get it as big as possible on your screen. Set up your favorite view and hit F11 to go full-screen. Hit F9 and F10 if your FeatureManager or Toolbars are showing. Zoom your model out as far as you can, like the image below.
Save the file
Go to File, Save As…, and in Save as type select Adobe portable document format (*.pdf). Before you save it, select Options near the bottom right to bring up the Export Options screen. Make sure you have the below selected. Hit OK and Save.
Send to printer
That’s basically it. You will get a 300 dpi graphic that the printer or design department can work with. If you have a program like Adobe Photoshop you can open the image and tweak it a little here and there, see what it looks like on different backgrounds or change the color.
Great printshops:
OnlinePrintHouse.com
PrintMojo.com
TheSignDude.com
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Also, if you have a newer nVidia card (and I would assume others, ATI’s can do it too), make sure to go into your graphic’s cards settings, and turn on the HARDWARE anti-aliasing. This is not the same as Solidwork’s antialiasing.. it works better, looks nicer, and uses nominal computing power. Heck, you should always have it on.
great point Charles. thanks.
You can also use Photoworks to render the image at whatever DPI you want straight into an image file. This not only gives you great resolution, but also a more photo-like image. Also, in SW2008, you can turn on Real View and have near photo images all the time, assuming your hardware will support it.
Right on Ben. I was going from the bare-bones-can’t-afford-photoworks-and-company-won’t-buy-it approach.
2008 seems like the image is a little crisper but I’m using the same hardware as 2007.
Josh,
This is a great post - it has helped me out so much - thanks.
Thanks also to Ben and Charles for your imput.
Later,
Rip
There is a superior way to achieve this output.
The key is to use a drawing.
Create a drawing (probably without a title block),
and place a shaded or haded with edges view.
Then SAVE-AS and select TIFF as the output format.
Click options, and then select PRINT CAPTURE.
You can now set the RESOLUTION to as high as 2880dpi.
I recommend that you set the paper size to match your document size to avoid scaling problems.
BEWARE! Anything over 600dpi is overkill for most applications and B-Size files are easily 40MB .
This is our company secret…
Example: http://tinyurl.com/255kyw
Mike.
Example: http://tinyurl.com/yu95l8
The High Quality box is greyed out for me, how come? Using 2007 SP0.
Khoa,
You MUST be in a DRAWING.
Open your Part or Assembly, SAVE the view you want,
create a new DRAWING, insert the saved view.
Then try SAVE AS - TIFF.
M.
Mike -
I have no problems saving it as a TIFF but I can’t save it as a high res. jpg in PDF form when i’m in my PART.
Khoa, when you’re in a part, select to save it as a PDF. In options you should have the option for High Quality.
Mike, that is AWESOME. Great for High DPI. When I have edges visible though, they are jagged. It may be because I sample the image down when I’m in Photoshop. I’ll have to mess with it some more. Thanks a lot for posting that. hadn’t even thought of making a drawing.
Josh -
I do have the option, only problem is that it’s greyed out and I can’t select it. Maybe coz I’m on SP0?
Josh,
Make sure you set your IMAGE QUALITY settings to max.
At 600dpi, the edges look excellent when printed.
You CAN go higher, but you need to balance the image size as they can be huge.
Print, print, print to test….
M.
Unless I’m missing a proper setting in SW2007’s convoluted (IMO) settings; RealView graphics are not available for displaying shaded models inside of drawings; only standard graphics are. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Yeah, you can’t use RealView graphics on drawing in 2007. However, You can do this in 2008.
Josh, thanks for letting me know that RealView is available in drawing mode with SW08. I’ll be adding that to my “plea for upgrades list” come budget time.
No problem, if you use RealView alot, you will love SW08, just make sure your graphics card can handle it!