plotting with shadow

[aswin s]

Hi all,

I have been drawing in CAD for two years as a student but I still don't know how to plot a black and white plan drawing with shadow and depth. I am not really sure if AutoCAD can do it automatically... If it can be done automatically pls give me some advises how to do it...

Thaks in advance,

Aswin

[CADTutor]

It's not really something you can easily do with AutoCAD. I guess you could draw the shadows and hatch them. Alternatively, move to Photoshop or Corel Draw and enhance your plan there - even here, there's no way to automatically generate realistic shadows. Both Photoshop and Corel do enable you to create drop shadows very quickly but I'm not sure that is what you're after.

[Pitkru]

hi, a novice speaking here, but you could render your plan view (after adding lights to the side). render to file as a tif and print in photoshop or similar as black and white. hope this helps a bit!

[CADTutor]

Pitkru is right but it does assume that you are looking at a plan view of a 3D drawing and not simply a 2D plan. If this is the case, you could also use the technique to do shadow analysis. See the Adding Sunlight to your Drawings (http://www.cadtutor.net/acad/acad2ki/sun/sun.html) tutorial for details.