Partner Products & Creo 1.0: KeyShot and Keeping a Secret

By Geoff Hedges | Published: May 10, 2011

Engineers everywhere know the secret to winning over management, clients, marketing, and sales: Generate professional photorealistic images of your 3D models. Whether you’re communicating early concepts, trying to make design decisions, or creating marketing and sales images, photograph-like images with slick textures and life-like backgrounds get attention. Luxion knows the value of a great picture more than anyone.

This PTC Gold Tier partner for Creo 1.0 specializes in creating one of the fastest and easiest-to-use rendering tools on the market, KeyShot. Produced for CAD specialists and laymen alike, KeyShot democratizes the rendering of 3D models. Use on a Mac or a PC; you don’t even need a special graphics card or dedicated drivers.

I asked Thomas Teger, Vice President for Marketing at Luxion, to tell us more about his flagship product, how it’s integrated with Creo 1.0, and why this engineer’s best-kept secret may no longer be so well kept.

Thomas Teger

Vice President for Marketing at Luxion

GH: What is KeyShot?

Teger: KeyShot is a CPU-based interactive real-time ray-tracing application. It breaks down the complexity of creating photographic images from 3D models. KeyShot gives anybody involved with 3D data the ability to create photographic images in a matter of seconds, independent of the size of the digital model.

GH: Why should companies consider using KeyShot with Creo?

Teger: For many reasons.  For the first time ever, you have a rendering tool that helps you cut costs and speed up time to market. Shocking, isn’t it? Since we made it so easy to create photorealistic images, you can take advantage of KeyShot throughout the entire development process:

• Sell an idea or concept early in development.
• Make decisions on design, material, finish, and color using the digital model instead of expensive physical prototypes
• Present final designs to internal and external clients.
• Create sales and marketing images for presentation, web, and print directly from your digital model

GH: You said KeyShot is easier to use. For whom exactly?

Teger: First, KeyShot doesn’t require any specialized expertise – so it has a broad appeal across the team.  KeyShot has six main buttons rather than hundreds of parameters, options, sliders, and adjustments found in traditional rendering programs. It’s the perfect tool for anyone who is or wants to get involved with rendering 3D data: industrial designers, mechanical engineers, marketing professionals, photographers, CG experts – you name it. The only limit is your creativity.

GH: I remember the old days of waiting for a rendering to complete or watching each line of a ray-tracing appear painfully on the screen. What’s today’s renderer like?

Teger:  You don’t play with parameters and wait for KeyShot. You see results at the same time you make changes – it’s real-time. You don’t have to wait for minutes or hours only to find out that this is not what you wanted. It draws on all your computer’s processing power; the more processors you have, the faster KeyShot gets!

GH: How life-like are the results?

Teger:  What sets KeyShot apart from the competition is the fact that we are using scientifically accurate materials. For lighting, KeyShot uses real-world lighting from a high dynamic range image (HDRI). Also, KeyShot features the only rendering engine that is certified by the CIE (International Commission on Illumination) for accurately representing light in computer graphics. When you put all this together, you end up with the most accurate image – in real time. And when you combine a 3D scene with a photograph, you can create results more amazing than you thought possible.

GH: It does look pretty sexy. How well is KeyShot integrated with Creo 1.0?

Teger: We have a KeyShot plugin that “links” the two applications together, rather than putting KeyShot inside each Creo application. This makes the installation and use extremely simple and efficient. Since the applications remain separate, they can easily operate side by side. This means that you can continue to work inside Creo while the image is refining in the background. Each plugin works the same in each Creo app. Simply open the model in the supported app, and look for the KeyShot button in the menu bar. Select Render and follow the instructions on the screen. Within seconds, KeyShot will open and drop your design into the default scene. Apply materials, change the lighting, move the camera. Done!

The plugin transfers all the geometry of the individual parts of an assembly. Identical parts are linked by default so you don’t need to assign the same material over and over again. In addition, we maintain the color information on the part level.

Emerson Industrial Automation

GH: What other types of data can KeyShot use?

Teger: You can directly use Alias, AutoCAD, CATIA, Creo Elements/Pro, Inventor, Rhinoceros, SketchUp, Solid Edge, SolidWorks, IGES, STEP, OBJ, 3ds, Collada, and FBX data.

GH: Who is using KeyShot?

Teger: Our customer list includes many of the Fortune 1000 product manufacturers and major industrial design companies including Dell, HP, Microsoft, Motorola, IDEO, frog design, and SMART Design.

GH: Where can users find out more about KeyShot?

Teger: From our website, www.keyshot.com. There’s lot of information, how to, examples, etc. You can also download our free 15-day trial to try KeyShot for yourself.

Featured Image: SMART DESIGN Worldwide