Editing Primary PhotoView 360 Lighting

Lighting in PhotoView 360 comes from the Primary PhotoView 360 Lighting scene environment.

The scene environment is an HDR (High Dynamic Range) image that surrounds the scene spherically, creating realistic light and reflections. PhotoView 360 lighting is only visible when you preview or create a final render of your model.

While you can add directional, spot, and point lights as you can in SOLIDWORKS Lighting, the best way to light your model in PhotoView is to edit the Primary PhotoView 360 Lighting.

To edit Primary PhotoView 360 Lighting:

  1. Add in PhotoView 360.
  2. In the DisplayManager, click View Scene, Lights, and Cameras.
  3. Expand PhotoView 360 Lights .
  4. So that you can see the effects of the lighting changes you make, right-click Primary PhotoView 360 Lighting and click Integrated Preview or Preview Window .
  5. Right-click Primary PhotoView 360 Lighting again and click Edit Primary PhotoView 360 Lighting.
  6. On the PhotoView 360 Lighting tab of the Edit Scene PropertyManager, under PhotoView 360 Lighting:
    1. Click Dynamic help
      When you move the pointer over an option, a detailed description of the option's effect on the scene appears.
    2. Adjust the Background brightness to change the brightness of the background without affecting the rendering brightness.
    3. Adjust the Rendering brightness to change the amount of light cast onto the model from the scene environment.
    4. To increase the realism and quality of lighting for environments with small hot spots of light, select Accurate environment lighting.
      For example, if a scene can appears spotty or distorted, enabling Accurate environment lighting can provide more accurate shadows.
      Rendering times are increased with Accurate environment lighting enabled.
    5. If your model has a reflective appearance, adjust the Scene reflectivity to change the amount of the environment image that is reflected onto the model.
    6. To spin the environment about the center of the scene floor, adjust the Environment Rotation.
      This lets you move lighting or reflections from the environment image to another location as seen in the PhotoView 360 rendering.
    7. Under Configurations, select the display state to which the changes you have made should be saved.
  7. Click .