Enhancing your views!

In AutoCAD 2007 you can quickly add realism to your model by associating background images with your named views.

Which view do you think looks more realistic?

It’s easy to associate background images with your named views!

First find (or take) a digital photo of the scene you want to use as the background. I took this photo out the back door of my house.

Use the navigation tools to set an appropriate viewpoint for your model. The Walk tool as well as the Camera and Target Positions are very useful for setting the viewpoint. You can access these tools from the 3D Navigate control panel of the Dashboard.

Some other things to consider when creating your named views include layer visibility, materials, and visual styles. However, you can always change these properties later.

After setting the appropriate view point (and other properties), use the View Manager to create or edit a named view. You can access the View Manager using the VIEW command or by selecting Manage Views from the view drop-down list in the Dashboard.

In the View Manager, choose New to access the New View dialog box. In the New View dialog box, enter the view name. You can set the background image in the New View dialog box when you create the new view or you can set it in the View Manager after you’ve created the view. Choose OK in the New View dialog box to finish creating the named view. I’ll show you how to add an image to an existing named view.

In the View Manager, select the named view to which you want to add a background image. By default, the Background Override is set to . From the drop-down list, select Image. If an image was not previously assigned, the Background dialog box will automatically display, if an image has already been assigned to the view, you can select Edit to access the Background dialog box.

In the Background dialog box, choose Browse and navigate to the digital photo that you want to use. You can choose Adjust Image to change the scale and position (offset) of the image in relation to the view. For example, I used the same photo for both of these views out the back of the house. By adjusting the scale and offset, I was able to position the image for the most interesting effect in each view.