: Render 3D CAD model as lineart/blueprint Coming from an engineering design background here. I’ve got this rather complex CAD model I’m supposed to make a poster for. I figured turning it

@Looi7658678

You can set hidden lines to off prior to your capture - should help a lot.

AutoDesk Fusion Help-360-Hidden Lines



For myself, I pull models into modo, and do my visualization work there, as there's a huge degree of artistic freedom: I'd imagine the same is true of Blender.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Gail6891361

OK, about half of mechanical 3d CAD applications do not allow you to do perspective drawings, Drawings are after all dimensioning tools and perspective is not allowed in drafting standards. However some vendors recognize that not everything is needed because of just the standards compliance. So for example Creo, NX and SolidWorks do allow this, probably also Catia (didnt test). Compared to these Fusion is really immature so maybe it will also have this feature.

So if you really want to use a STEP file just open it in Creo, NX or Solid works and make a drawing with perspective.



Image 1: Isometric and perspective drawing from Creo, opened in illustrator after secondary curve fitting on the vector data.

Now 3d applications meant for document content creation (DCC), like Maya 3DS MAX, Houdini, Mode, Blender etc. Do not usually tessellate the STEP models all that well. If you want to use one of these pre tesselate n your cad and export as OBJ, STL, or XYZ and open the model. Most of these have a vector rendering mode. As a bonus you also get MUCH more tools for coloring things.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Sarah814

This trick has been a gold valued limitation workaround in a freeware CAD:

I have a wireframe scene. I print it as PDF with Adobe PDF printer. The PDF can be opened in Illustrator. It is editable vector drawing, not a bitmap.

In File menu export as 2D vector file is greyed, but printing the scene gives the result I want. Test the same in your CAD.

My freeware CAD is Design Spark Mechanical (Radically downgraded version of SpaceClaim). It reads STEP files, but their editing is disabled. And, of course there's no perspective except in its poor shaded view mode, which gives screen resolution bitmaps.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Berumen635

Not an CAD guy myself but it does look like Fusion 360 will export the canvas as an image. Gives you control over resolution, transparent background, image file type. The samples I saw all show solid shaded representations of the design but I would think that line work would export the same way.

Via File menu: File>Capture Image...


(source Autodesk)

Vote Up Vote Down