Autodesk LIGHTSCAPE, Manual

Page: 107 / 362

Working with Surfaces
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boundary between the two polygons appears as a
sharp edge.
To make surfaces smooth:
1.
Select the surfaces.
2.
Right-click and choose Smoothing.
3.
The Smoothing dialog appears.
4.
Type a value or use the slider to set the smooth-
ing angle.
5.
To create smooth shading over adjacent surfaces,
click Make Smooth.
6. To disable smoothing, click Make Flat.
Note: In the Preparation file, you can see the
results of the smoothing operation more clearly
with the Enhanced display mode.
This smoothing operation does not affect the geom-
etry of the model; it only smooths the shading
between adjacent edges of the surfaces. The profile
or silhouette of the curved surface still shows the
faceted edge of the polygons. You can limit this effect
by creating finer polygonal representations of the
curve in your modeling package. For some
modeling programs, you can set the polygonal reso-
lution of the curved surface when you import the
model.
Grouping Surfaces into Blocks
You can group selected surfaces to create a new
block. For more information, see “Creating New
Blocks” on page 86.
Duplicating Surfaces
Duplicating a surface adds a copy of the selected
surface to the model. All the attributes and layering
information of the original surface are preserved.
Duplicated surfaces are coincident with the original
surfaces, so you must move them to see both the
original and the duplicate.
To duplicate surfaces:
1.
Select the surfaces.
2.
Right-click and choose Duplicate.
Isolating the Display of Surfaces
An excellent way to manage the complexity of your
model is to isolate selected surfaces to view and
operate on only those surfaces. If you isolate surfaces
that belong to a block, the entire block is isolated.
To isolate surfaces:
1.
Select the surfaces.
2.
Right-click and choose Isolate View.
Appearance if smoothing
angle is set to less than 45°
Angle between normals of the polygons is 45°
Appearance if smoothing
angle is set to greater than 50°