Vector Art work from SW or PW?

I created a rendering from PhotoWorks of a cutaway product shot. It
has been used on printed literature no problem. Now I'm being asked to
provide a DWG file to our consulatants so they may animate the cutaway
for a DVD we are producing. Apparently they don't like the image
quality of the image. I don't believe and have yet to come across
anything in PhotoWorks that saids it can create vector fully rendered
files (don't think it exists). I know Rhino has Penguin to create
vector artwork but does SW have anything similar? I figure the only
thing I can offer is a higher res rendering from PW... Comments anyone?

 

Renderers don't make vector data, they make raster data.

Are you sure they don't want a 3D model to animate in 3DS Max ? You can save
the model in an ACIS 1.6 format, which can be read by Autocad and saved as
3DS.

Mark

 

Just in case I am reading your post right....

I am interpreting 'vector art' as 'wireframe representation' of the
model.

PWx cannot (as far as I know - I am always careful to throw in that
disclaimer) do the specturm of 'non-photorealistic' renderings that
Penguin can pull off.

But it CAN render wireframe representations of your models, or hybrid
wireframe/shaded versions of your models.

The option is under the 'hand-of-God' icon on your PWx toolbar (tooltip
shows it as 'options')
under the 'Advanced' tab. You can choose to 'render model and
contours' or 'render contours only'.

Warning about rendering 'contours only' (wireframe) - for some stupid,
stupid reason, if you just want to render or animate a wireframe of
your model, PWx still has to calculate everything else that would go
into a regular rendering (reflections, refractions, indirect
illumination, shadows, etc) only to throw them away before making the
wireframe (contour) render.
If you are using PWx for wireframe renderings/animations, turn off all
the lights, turn off shadows, and turn off all reflections and
refractions (in 'document properties' under the hand of God) - this way
PWx won't calculate stuff that it will just throw away anyway.

And, of course, if you want to make a wireframe animation, you might
just want to cut out the middle man and set up anit-aliasing (both with
SWx and your video card), make your SWx environment wireframe, jack up
your screen resolution as high as it will go, and animate your SWx
screen.

Ed

 

Thanks Mark and Ed,

I've provided SW & IGES files and I will now offer them with an ACIS
file per your recommendation Mark. But I don't think any of these will
be the proper solution. When I say vector artwork I'm referring to non
raster image file fully rendering with materials, color etc... Similar
to Illustrator or Corel artwork that can be scaled and zoom in/ zoom
out without loosing its crispness. So I don't believe the wire frame
image is what they're looking for either.
Thanks,
David

 

There are third-party renderers for 3ds max, maya, lightwave, etc., but
I don't know about SW. I use Electric Rain's plug-in
(http://www.erain.com/products/plug-ins/examples/) for 3ds max to
create all vector artwork (Adobe Illustrator, EPS, etc.) as well as
vector Flash assets from 3d meshes. You could try creating the vector
files you need by bringing 3d SW content into their standalone package.

Another thought as I type this: Can you just make a single drawing view
with no callouts or dimensions and print it out as a PDF? Adobe
Illustrator can read PDF content in, and any drawing contours should
show up in vector format.

Joel
http://www.frameworkmedia.com/