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We’d like to highlight some new features of SolidWorks 2008 which you may not find immediately but are definitely worth a look.

SolidWorks 2008 has really cranked up the performance and the look of Real View. You’ll find a huge list of appearances you can apply to your model in the Task Pane.

To apply an appearance, open up the Real View tab in the Task Pane. Pick the look you want to apply and drag/drop the appearance into the graphics window (into the scene to apply to the entire part or onto a component in an assembly).

So, you model will look like the image on the left with edges ON and like the one on the right with edges OFF.

If you want it to look even better, use Ambient Occlusion. Open the Scenes section of the Real View Task Pane Window and click on the Studio Scenes. Scroll to the bottom of the list and you will see Ambient Occlusion as one of the default scenes.

Drag/Drop the Ambient Occlusion scene into your graphics window. Turn OFF edges and your model will look like this.

Ambient Occlusion is essentially a little more shadowing on your model to make it look more realistic. It also helps when you are looking at a face straight on when you have bosses/pockets in it that are normally washed out by the light sources.

Please note that the shadows are recalculated every time you rotate … they only take a second. Your model will always be interactive so this quick calculation is completely interruptible.

Other things to know:

• Turn down the brightness of your light sources. Then, you can turn up the ambient amount of light on one of the lights to give you the desired effect of Ambient Occlusion.
• If you turn off shadows, Ambient Occlusion will also turn off.