[purCAB]

This is probably more of a SolidWorks issue than it is a Maxwell issue, but I thought I'd post here in the hopes that someone familar with SolidWorks may have already come across this.

I have a simple architectural assembly that when viewed alone, the perspective appars correct with the vanishing point at the far end of the scene. However, when I add a large ground plane (actually an SW part, not a plane per-se), the perspective seems to reverse. That is, the near end appears smaller than the far end. This makes the render entirely unusable. I have tried adjusting the degree of perspective within SolidWorks, but this does not seem to address the issue. Is there a different way to place the ground than making it part of the SW assembly?

Saludos,

Ken

[b-kandor]

I assume your rendering in solidworks (photoworks). If so, you can create a camera in solidworks and render from that camera's viewpoint.

Otherwise try using the perspective setting found in View | modify | perspective.

[purCAB]

No, I'm rendering only in Maxwell (I don't even have the PW plugin turned on), but the part/assembly as well as lighting is coming directly from SolidWorks. I had previously tried adjusting the amount of perspective (via view->modify->perspective), but this does not have any effect on the problem. If I make the floor part of the assembly then SolidWorks seems to confuse the perspective (vanishing point). Without the floor the perspective seems correct.

Ken

[purCAB]

This problem appears to be related to not creating a SolidWorks camera prior to rendering. After explicitly creating (and using) an SW camera, the perspective is correct. Using the default camera (i.e. the view created by positioning the assembly within space), SolidWorks does not appear to be able to correctly evaluate the proper perspective.

Ken

[Mike Scola]

As I understand it, SW perspective (without using camera view) is a function of the model size and the number of model units the viewing point is from the model. For example if you have a 1 meter cube model and your perspective is set to 3, the viewpoint will be 3 meters from the model. If you add a ground plane which is very large relative to the subject without modifying the perspective number it will appear to totally change the perspective.

I'm confused by the inverse perspective you are experiencing. are you sure that the perspective is inverting or is it an optical illusion? Don't mean to question your visual acuity, but sometimes it can look like its inverted when its not.

[purCAB]

Mike, I'd guess (as you suspected) that the difference in part sizes is causing the issue. I found that if you set the perspective to .05 (or so) you can make the scene look (visually) correct. I hadn't realized that SW was so sensitive to part sizes differences (or perhaps it's the largest part that's driving this). Additionally, I really had never set the perspective below 1 (the min value one can usually set the perspective to via the arrow buttons).

What I was trying to say by the perspective being reversed (although obviously not very well) is that the vanishing point seemed wrong. Perspective is always a sort of optical illusion that makes our CAD models look more realistic. What I was "seeing" is that two identical objects one positioned in the foreground and one in the background, was that the far object appeared larger than the near object. This is of course the opposite of what would be normally perceived.