To Work with Autodesk® Rendering in AutoCAD

Before You Start

Before uploading your drawing to Autodesk® Rendering, you should prepare named views, lighting, and other parameters in AutoCAD as described here.

3D geometry

Autodesk® Rendering only works for AutoCAD drawings with 3D solids and surfaces. The service cannot render 2D geometry or paper space views.

Named views

Autodesk® Rendering relies on named views created in AutoCAD. You can render any or all named views found in your drawing. Create several named views before uploading your drawing file. The service can also render the current viewport when you saved the drawing.

Sun and sky

For sun, sky, and geographic location properties, create a named view from the viewport where these settings are applied. Make sure to select the Sun & Sky option (View PropertiesBackground) when creating the named view.

Default lighting

Autodesk® Rendering will use the default lighting for the drawing unless you add at least one standard or photometric light to your scene in AutoCAD before uploading the drawing.

Materials

For AutoCAD 2010 drawings, only the materials that came with the software renders correctly through the rendering service. Drawings created in AutoCAD 2011 and newer can contain your own custom materials. However, if your drawing uses any custom texture files, create an eTransmit file to include them so that the rendering service can access them.

Xrefs

If your AutoCAD drawing relies on any xrefs (externally referenced drawing files), use the eTransmit feature in AutoCAD to gather these files into a single archive ZIP file for uploading.

Minimize the time for uploading and rendering

Consider saving a copy of your drawing that contains only the objects to be rendered.

Render from AutoCAD 2013 and Newer

1. Open a drawing in AutoCAD and click the Visualize tabAutodesk® Rendering panelRender in Cloud. If prompted, sign in to your Autodesk account.
   Note: In earlier versions, the Visualize tab might be known as the Render tab.
2. From the Autodesk® Rendering dialog box, select the Model View, e-mail notification, and click Start Rendering.
3. Optional: In AutoCAD, click theVisualize tabAutodesk® Rendering panelRender Gallery to review and download the completed images.