VisualStyles

Option

Description

New

Creates a new visual style.

Delete

Deletes the selected visual style, except for predefined visual styles such as 2dWireframe, 3D Hidden, 3dWireframe, Conceptual, Realistic, and so on.

Apply visual style

Applies the selected visual style to the current viewport.

Edit visual style

Displays the settings of the selected visual styles. To edit a setting: click the settings field, then type a new value or select an option in the drop down list.

Specifies the look of faces of 3D models:

Face Style - selects an overall color scheme for the visual style:

• Real - makes the faces look real, like a rendered mode; displays materials if applied
• Gooch - substitutes warm and cool colors for light and dark
• Constant Color - applies a single color to each face
• None - no style applied to faces, like wireframe mode

Lighting Quality - specifies the quality of curved faces:

• Faceted - lowest quality but fastest rendering
• Smooth - good quality
• Smoothest - best quality at cost of slower rendering

Color -

• Normal -  face colors are displayed normally
• Monochrome - face colors are displayed in a monochrome color, as specified by the Monochrome Color option
• Tint - face colors have their hue and saturation changed
• Desaturate - face colors have their saturation reduced by 30%.
• Background - faces take on the background color

Material Display - determines whether materials are displayed; materials are applied with the MaterialAssign command:

• Materials and texture - both materials (the look of the surface, such as brick) and the texture maps (bumpiness) are rendered, at the cost of rendering speed
• Materials - materials are displayed on the faces of 3D models
• Off - materials are not displayed, which leads to quicker renderings

When Material Display is not off, then highlights and opacity are ignored, as  materials provides their own values for them.

Specifies the level of transparency of faces:

On/off - toggles opacity on and off

Opacity - specifies the level of transparency (Not available when materials are on):

• 0 - Opaque
• 1 - Transparent
• 2 thru 99 - Translucent

Transparency depth  - specifies how far transparency reaches in terms of the number of overlapping entities

Determines whether shadows are displayed.

Shadow display - choose one:

• Off — objects cast no shadows, the preferred option as shadow-casting slows down the program's display speed, so leave it turned off unless you are saving images to file or plotting them
• Ground shadows — objects cast shadows on the shadow plane (described later), but not on each other
• Full shadows — objects cast shadows on the ground and on each other

Specifies the style of edge to display:

Show - choose one:

• None - neither facets nor isolines nor edges are displayed; this setting turns off many other settings
• Isolines - isolines and edges are displayed; isoline are the curved lines that simulate the surfaces of curved faces
• Facet Edges - facets and edges are displayed on entities

Color - specifies the color for all edges

Width - specifies the width of edge lines

Number of lines  - specifies the number of isolines drawn on curved surfaces, from 0 to 2047

Always on top - determines if all isolines are displayed, or only those that are "on top" (hidden isolines being hidden)

Determines how fat outlines are around models:

Show - toggles the display of silhouette edges

Width - width of the silhouette edges in the range of 1 to 25 pixels; applies to all entities in the viewport equally

Specifies how to handle occluded (hidden) edges and facets; this setting allows you to display hidden lines in a different color and linetype from visible lines:

Show - toggles the visibility of occluded edges and facets:

• On - hidden lines are shown “through” the model
• Off - hidden lines are not shown

Color - specifies the color for visible obscured edges and facets;

Linetype - specifies the line type for visible obscured edges and facets; the program does not use the usual linetype patterns, but a separate set:

• Solid
• Dashed
• Dotted
• Sparse dot
• Short dash
• Medium dash
• Medium long dash
• Long dash
• Double short dash
• Double medium dash
• Double long dash

All of these settings do not apply to isolines.

Extends edges beyond their boundaries; also known as "overhang":

On/Off - turn line extensions on or off

Line extensions - specify the distance the lines extend beyond boundaries, such as face edges

Determines the use of a custom line drawing style:

On/Off - turns it on and off

Custom pen - specifies the style of line drawing

Toggles the display of a background in the viewport:

Backgrounds - turn on or off

Backgrounds consist of either a solid color, a gradient of two or three colors, or a raster image, and are set by the Background command.