Cutaways

[bigbee]

This software is fantastic. Have been surveying software to easily render parts in solidworks files that does not require a degree in nuclear physics, and this is it. Truly easy and great results. Nothing I could find comes close.

The one crucial feature I would LOVE to see is the ability to do cutaways of parts. Just basic, 90, 180 degree cutaways. I realise you can do that with a transparency mapped to the part, but the parts come out hollow so is not quite the desired result.

I work for a fairly large company that has piles and piles of solidworks files (hundreds of thousands), with more and more made each day. At present to have them rendered (with cutaways) for marketing materials and other similar documentation requires a third party graphic artist, which takes a lot of time and effort. So what we generally have is ton of people that create "rendered" cutaways of equipment using Powerpoint (shapes, lines, gradients grouped together traced onto engineer schematics, it's absurd). Solidworks is restricted within the company to the engineers only, and they have no interest in creating cutaways for rendering purposes unfortunately.

So yes, Cutaways in your future updates please! Also the edge highlighting in the new Cartoon material is great. A non cartoon material where you can highlight (or outline) edges would be great also!

Cheers

[DriesV]

+1 ... and then some!

Dries

[Speedster]

Solidworks is restricted within the company to the engineers only, and they have no interest in creating cutaways for rendering purposes unfortunately.

You've raised a very important point.  High end rendering is relatively new in the product development cycle, and frankly, most companies are not on board yet, and even fewer engineers!  But the smart ones are.  With design costs and time-to-market being so critical today, I'm seeing (at least among a few of my own clients) a tighter integration between engineering, manufacturing and especially marketing, and up-front, not at the back end as has been traditional. 

I have a major long-term client who manufactures medical devices.  They have eight SolidWorks engineers on staff, but retain me do their ID and plastic part design, as well as assist the engineering team in any area they need by experience.  But now, as a result of their 21st Century corporate culture, we all work closely with their marketing department (which has nothing to do with sales- sales are the result of good marketing) to ensure we create what they need in a timely manner, and integrates well into the big picture.

Rendering (which I do for them) is critical, because as we all know, a good render is usually way better than photography, and best of course if it's a KeyShot render!  So I have helped the team understand and implement stuff like mapping, at the time of creation.  Nasty looking models, but so what! 

But we also create mapped cut-away sections at the time of creation.  We know they will be needed down the road for manuals, marketing, training, etc.  It's way faster and more efficient when the part is on the screen, then later when you have to rummage around and find it, open it, etc.  We create (in SolidWorks) a section configuration for both the part and any associated assembly.  Then move on...

My personal opinion is that sections should be created in native, not in the rendering app.  But +1 on like simple 90 degree increments.!

Bill G

[cdhacka]

Ability to make cutaways directly in Keyshot would make my job a whole lot easier. As it stands now I am making my cutaways in the CAD program and then importing into Keyshot. In one instance I need a container cut in half to show the internal parts and be able to show the container uncut in the same orientation as the cutaway view. I am still new with Keyshot so there might be some more advanced techniques I need to learn to orient my imported models in Keyshot but as it stands now things are just not lining up. Has Keyshot 4 made improvements in this area?

[guest84672]

What do you mean by "things are not lining up"?

[maymay]

+1!

I was thinking about this the other day and how it could be implemented while retaining KeyShot's simplistic nature. Maybe there could be a quick "wizard" that allowed you to choose a primitive (cube, cylinder or plane), place it, choose which side to cut and which parts are affected. This would be huge since KeyShot ignores Solid Edge's section views (I don't know if KS works with any other CAD software).

[Esben Oxholm]

+1!

I was thinking about this the other day and how it could be implemented while retaining KeyShot's simplistic nature. Maybe there could be a quick "wizard" that allowed you to choose a primitive (cube, cylinder or plane), place it, choose which side to cut and which parts are affected. This would be huge since KeyShot ignores Solid Edge's section views (I don't know if KS works with any other CAD software).

It also ignores Creo's section views.
When I want to render a cross section, I just do an extrude cut through the whole model or assembly and export that to keyshot (or update the model if it is already imported). Doesn't take many seconds, but would indeed by nice to do inside keyshot if the simplicity of the user interface doesn't suffer from it. 

[DriesV]

I always struggle with section views in SolidWorks and transferring them to KeyShot.
I prefer to keep my parts 'clean', so I do not make configurations with 'section cuts' for my parts.

I usually make a copy of my top assembly and apply cut features for the section view there. This is OK for rendering draft images of section views.
However, I'm unable to assign different face colors (to separate faces) on assembly features in SolidWorks!
Many times, for HQ section views, I end up saving my top assembly as part. Working in a part, I can add/edit face colors perfectly fine. This works well for our products, but I can imagine this solution being less than ideal for e.g. a complete car assembly.

Most of the time the section views I create only require a 'boolean subtraction' with simple volumes like a cube, cylinder...
It would be really nice of this were possible inside KeyShot. Of course with the ability to specify the section face material for each object.

Dries

[cmcconnell]

this would be fantastic

[jeffw]

I think the reason KS does not recognize section views in CAD programs is because the CAD section views are just graphic representations i.e. they don't effect the model geometry. When the geometry is cut and a different material applied to the cut faces then that is what KS sees. I have done this successfully in SolidEdge but it does take considerable front end work, especially if there are multiple sections using different shapes. If KS could do this graphically then that would indeed be a welcome addition. However after using KS for several years I would say it is not marketed for its technical illustration capabilities but for its use in product advertising. It would have more CAD centric features if the case were otherwise.

[thomasteger]

We have a "cutaway" material in the works that didn't make it into 4.2. We will revisit for v5.