I'm not aware of a way to print a drawing (2002 and earlier) with a single viewport shaded (or rendered). See the very end of this post for how I do it.
However, you can do some pretty impressive things with ACAD's native renderer. It's REALLY worth looking into. Keep posting questions as you encounter things in modeling and rendering. Lots of folks here are pretty sharp on these topics. If you just need a formatted print of your shaded image(shade works SURPRISINGLY WELL!)...2 possible aproaches that work equally well with RENDER or SHADE. I've used the second with much more success, as I find it more flexible in more situations, but both 1 & 2 will work (and 1 can be used for input into 2...)
Aproach - 1:
1. create a single viewport. Size it large enough to get the detail you want. 1 viewport on screen is usually best. then zoom to the view and amount of detail you want.
2. Set the COLOR (Notice I did NOT say Material)of your part. This is for Shade. Either change its color properties or change the color properties of its layer. Do this for each part in your assembly.
3. Set your shade preference. I use shadedge - 0 (zero)
4. Shade the Viewport. (command: Shade)
5. Satisfied with the pic? Use the "SAVEIMG" command to save it out to an external raster file. I use BMP, then convert it to JPG later if I wish. Accept the defaults for BMP for now, experiment later. You should be satisfied with the results. TIF is also ok, but I don't have much use for it UNLESS I WANT TO PLOT A POSTER-SIZED PLOT. It's great for that.
6. Import it (BMP OR JPG) into a page-maker program of your choice using import from file, and finding it in the file selector of that program, or Or OR: OPEN the BMP file IN WINDOWS PAINT, go to EDIT pull-down, and use SELECT ALL and then ^c to "copy" selected to clipboard. then ALT-TAB to target page layout program (I use Windows WORD with GREAT success) and ^v it into place. Arrange it in place, and add any titling and text desired.
Approach 2:
1. Create the viewport and shade as above.
2. Capture the entire screen using "Printscreen" button on keyboard.
3. open Windows PAINT., and ^v it. Select "yes" to re-size window (in paint).
4. Use PAINT's RECTANGULAR cut-tool on toolbar to make a window around just the image you want. then ^x and close paint. You can ^c and minimize until you're more confident.
5. shift to ANY target program. I use WORD. (if so, remember to set horiz or vert paper in File->paper set-up).
Control-V (^v) to paste it in (Standard Paste- NOT Paste Special).
To re-size your pic in WORD larger or smaller on the page, single-click in the pic, then select a corner-box and click-drag-release at the desired new size. Don't drag the cornerbox into a margin area- it messes up formatting. Re-set your margins in FILE->PAPER SETUP, to mimimums if necessary. Use WORD Text Box to add any titling or text to your slide. Regular text is ok, but careful- it might mess up formatting. The Text-box can be placed anywhere, even over your image, uses all your fonts, can be made transparent, and you can turn of the edge-line around it for Text on top of anything in your picture.
Frankly, all of this assumes you DON'T need your pic INSIDE a drawing plot. To do THAT, capture the pic as above, and re-insert it into your drawing as a seperate raster image. Use ACAD's "scale" command to re-size the pic to just the right size. In ACAD 2002 & newer, you don't have to worry about background and raster settings. Place it on a layer over the geometry, and freeze geometry layers IN THAT VIEWPORT, or place it somewhere clean, and shift that P-Space (TAB) vport to show the inserted raster image at the desired zoom. OF COURSE YOU CAN'T ROTATE THE IMAGE IN THAT VIEWPORT Unless you freeze THE RASTER IMAGE LAYER and thaw and shade the geometry beneath, but this WILL get you a static shaded raster image in the proper position for your plot. If you decide you need a different rotated position for your pic in that viewport, you'll have to make a new raster image and re-insert it according to the steps above. Cumbersome, but it works, and the results can be striking!
Good Luck EXPERIMENTING !
C. Fee
Questions?
cfee@ev1.net
