Sketching How do I? Bookmark workflows > B. Using sketch tools and bookmarks to review a completed design.

Get started sketching

Start creating a conceptual design sketch or annotating a model or cloud data.

Create a conceptual design sketch

Get started creating a conceptual design sketch.

To create a conceptual design sketch

Choose Layouts > Right to create a Side view, or choose Layouts > All windows > All windows to create four views.
Choose a Pencil, Marker, Airbrush, or Solidbrush from the Paint palette.
See Paint and erase
In the Paint Panel customize the brush's color, opacity, size, shape, and stroke properties.
See Customize brushes and paint
Use your stylus to sketch in a view.
See Paint and erase
To create a new canvas layer to sketch on, choose Windows > Editors > Canvas Layer editor and click the button.
See Create an image layer
To select a canvas layer to sketch on, in the view window title bar click the button and select a canvas layer from the menu.
To adjust your view of the sketch, press and drag in the view with either the (track) or the (dolly).
See Change your view of a canvas plane
Choose File > Export > Make canvas picture to save the sketch as an image file.
See Export a canvas plane
Choose File > Print to print the sketch.
See Print a canvas plane

Annotate a model or cloud data

Get started annotating a model or cloud data.

To annotate a model or cloud data

Open the wire file that contains the model or cloud data that you want to annotate.
Click the view you want to annotate.
To adjust your view of the model or cloud data, press and drag in the view with either the (track) or the (dolly). In the Perspective window, you can also use the to tumble.
See Change your view of a canvas plane
To display the model in shaded mode, select a diagnostic shading mode from ObjectDisplay > Diagnostic shading .
In an Orthographic view, do one of the following:
Choose Canvas > New canvas to create a new canvas plane on the view.
Start sketching in the view to bring up a dialog box allowing you to create a new canvas in that view.
See Create a canvas plane

In a Perspective view, do one of the following:

Choose Canvas > New overlay canvas .
Start sketching in the view, and when the dialog box appears, set Type to Overlay and adjust the size and resolution parameters.

Annotations on overlay planes appear only for a specific view orientation. Tumbling, tracking or dollying the view will remove the annotations. Click on the name of the overlay plane in the Construction Plane Editor, or click the Look-at icon at the top of the Canvas Layer Editor to see the annotations again, or create a bookmark.

See Bookmark an annotated model.
See Windows > Editors > Construction Plane editor .
See Windows > Editors > Canvas Layer editor
Choose a Pencil or other brush tool from the Paint palette.
See Paint and erase
Use your stylus or mouse to sketch in the view.
To create a new canvas layer to sketch on, choose Windows > Editors > Canvas Layer editor and click the button.
See Create an image layer
To select a canvas layer to sketch on, in the view window title bar, choose the layer name from the pull-down list.
To adjust your view of the sketch in an Orthographic view, press and drag in the view with either the (track) or the (dolly).
See Change your view of a canvas plane

Do not forget that tumbling, tracking or dollying in a perspective view will remove all sketch annotations. Select the overlay plane in the Construction Plane Editor (Windows > Editors > Construction Plane editor ) to return to the annotated view, or create a bookmark.

See Bookmark an annotated model
When you are finished annotating, close any open windows or option boxes that are covering the view. Adjust your view so it appears as you want it to be saved.
Choose File > Export > Current window to save the model and annotations as an Alias pix image file.
See Export a canvas plane
Choose File > Print to print the model and annotations.
See Print a canvas plane

To annotate an image of a model or cloud data

Open the wire file that contains the model or cloud data that you want to annotate.
Click the view you want to annotate.
To adjust your view of the model or cloud data, press and drag in the view with either the (track) or the (dolly).
See Change your view of a canvas plane
Choose WindowDisplay > Toggles > Grid to hide the grid.
To display the model in shaded mode, select a diagnostic shading mode from ObjectDisplay > Diagnostic shading .
Choose File > Export > Current window to save the current view of the model as an Alias pix image file.
See Export a canvas plane
Choose WindowDisplay > Toggles > Model to hide the model (and, if diagnostic shading is on, turn it off), or choose WindowDisplay > Toggles > Clouds to hide the cloud data.
Choose File > Import > Canvas image and import the image file as a canvas image plane.
See Import an image as a new canvas
Choose Windows > Editors > Canvas Layer editor and click the button to create a new layer to sketch on.
See Create an image layer
Choose a Pencil or other brush tool from the Paint palette.
See Paint and erase
Use your stylus or mouse to sketch in the view.
Choose File > Export > Make canvas picture to save the sketch as an image file.
Choose WindowDisplay > Toggles > Model to display the model again.

Choose WindowDisplay > Toggles > Clouds to display the cloud data again.

Choose File > Print to print the sketch.
See Print a canvas plane

Bookmark an annotated model

Create a bookmark of a model containing the view orientation, shading and annotations.

Bookmarks allow you to store and review annotations within a 3D model. In order to review the annotations within the context in which they were created, all information pertaining to the view and the model's shading are saved within each bookmark.

Choose Windows > Bookmark Lister to open the Bookmark Lister, which contains tools to create and edit bookmarks.

To create a new bookmark

Do one of the following:

Add annotations to your Perspective view.
See Annotate a model or cloud data
Click the New button in the Bookmark Lister.

This saves the current orientation, shading, and annotations of the model.

When a bookmark is created, a small thumbnail icon of the bookmarked view is added to the Bookmark Lister. By default, bookmarked views are named BM, BM#2, BM#3... (put the mouse cursor over the icon to see this).

If a bookmark is already selected (indicated by a green outline in the Bookmark Lister), new annotations will be added to that bookmark.

See Use the view panel

Changing the view in Perspective mode by tumbling, tracking or dollying will remove all annotations.

To update a bookmark

Select the bookmark by clicking on it in the Bookmark Lister.
Add or modify annotations in the view.

To rename a bookmark

Hold down the key and double-click on the bookmark icon.
In the dialog box, type in a new label and click OK.

To delete a bookmark

Do one of the following:

Click on the bookmark icon then click on the Delete button.
Drag and drop the bookmark icon on the Delete button (trash can).

To change the order of bookmarks

In the Bookmark Lister, click on the bookmark you want to move with the middle mouse button , and drag it to its new position.

A red arrow indicates where the bookmark will be moved.

To view bookmarks

Do one of the following:

Click on one of the bookmark icons to view a given bookmark.
Click the Previous or Next button to view the bookmarks in sequence, starting at the current bookmark (indicated by a green outline in the Bookmark Lister).

You can also use the Page Up and Page Down keys as a quick way to show the previous or next bookmark without the need to open the Bookmark Lister.

Click the Cycle button to see the bookmarks in a slide show fashion. The slide show starts at the currently selected bookmark (green outline) and displays the following bookmarks in order, all the way to the end of the shelf. It then loops around to the first bookmark.
To stop the slide show, click anywhere in the window.
In the option box, an option called Bookmark cycle time specifies how long each bookmark is displayed. Check the Repeat cycles option to make the slide show repeat indefinitely.

> View transitions

When switching from one bookmark (or view) to the next, the camera is animated to take you smoothly from one view to another without getting disoriented.

The time (in seconds) taken to transition from one view to the next is controlled by the View transition time option in Preferences > General Preferences (Model Windows section).

The default is 0.5 seconds. When this value is set to 0.0, the smooth animation is turned off.

To save bookmarks

Save your file in the normal way, using File > Save or File > Save as .

The bookmarks are saved in the wire file and can be retrieved back into AliasStudio or StudioViewer.

To save one or all bookmarks as image files

To save only one bookmark, click on it in the Bookmark Lister.

A green border appears around the selected (current) bookmark.

Double-click the Publish Bookmark button to open the option box.
In the option box, choose Current or All, and select an Image File Type (default is jpeg).
Click Go.

A file browser window is displayed.

Choose a folder and type in an object name for your image or group of images.



Press .

The saved images are called <object name>_<bookmark name>.<file type>.

If bookmark names are not unique, "_<#>" is added to the image names to make them unique, for example: issue_BM_1.jpg, issue_BM_2.jpg, etc.

Bookmark workflows

Describes typical workflows using bookmarks.

Bookmarks in AliasStudio are typically used for one of the following two purposes:

Exploring design ideas.
Reviewing a completed design.

In the first workflow, the user is likely a designer exploring different concepts for a design. He/she wants to be able to sketch on top of a model then save the different sketches (including orientation and shading) as a series of bookmarks that can be quickly viewed later. For example, a car designer may be experimenting with different looks for some components on the front panel of a car (see workflow A below).

In the second workflow, a designer or manager wants to review a completed design and indicate areas that require modification, or simply add some comments.

Both workflows are described in detail below.

A. Using sketch tools and bookmarks to explore design ideas.

Choose File > Open to open your model in AliasStudio.
Adjust the Perspective view to your liking by tumbling, dollying or tracking.
Choose WindowDisplay > Hardware Shade to shade the model or choose one of the shading modes in the Diagnostic Shading Panel.





Choose Windows > Bookmark Lister to open the Bookmark Lister.
Choose Canvas > New overlay canvas to create a new overlay canvas in the Perspective window.
Choose Windows > Editors > Canvas Layer editor to open the Canvas Layer Editor.
Choose a Pencil, Marker, Airbrush or other tool from the Paint menu. With the mouse or stylus, sketch on top of the model in the Perspective view. Draw some feature lines and other characteristics that will help develop the model further.

Let's say you now want to explore two different alternatives for the front detailing, but want to show both with the general features you sketched in the previous step.

In the Canvas Layer Editor, rename the existing layer "General Features".
Choose Layer > New image layer in the Canvas Layer Editor to create a new layer. Rename it "Front_A".



Sketch the first version of the front detailing in the Perspective view.





In the Canvas Layer Editor, make the Front_A layer invisible by clicking its icon so that it becomes a icon.
Choose Layer > New image layer in the Canvas Layer Editor to create a new layer. Rename it "Front_B".
Sketch the second version of the front detailing in the Perspective view.



Click the New button in the Bookmark Lister.

A new bookmark is created, containing the general features and second version of the front detailing.





In the Canvas Layer Editor, make the Front_A layer visible by clicking its icon, and make the Front_B layer invisible by clicking its icon.
Click the New button in the Bookmark Lister.

A new bookmark is created, containing the general features and first version of the front detailing.





By now you should have two bookmarks showing the same view of your car model with different sets of front detailing.

B. Using sketch tools and bookmarks to review a completed design.

Choose File > Open to open your model in AliasStudio.
Adjust the Perspective view to your liking by tumbling, dollying or tracking.
Choose WindowDisplay > Hardware Shade to shade the model or choose one of the shading modes in the Diagnostic Shading Panel.





Choose Windows > Bookmark Lister to open the Bookmark Lister.
Choose Canvas > New overlay canvas to create an overlay in the view.
Choose a Pencil, Marker, Airbrush or other tool from the Paint menu. With the mouse or stylus, sketch on top of the model in the Perspective view. Write some comments, mark areas that require modifications, etc
Click the New button in the Bookmark Lister.

A new bookmark is created that captures the camera position, shading information and annotations.





Change your view of the model by tumbling, etc

All sketching is removed.

Choose Canvas > New overlay canvas to create an overlay canvas in the new view.
Add comments, etc, to the new view with some Paint tools.
Click the New button in the Bookmark Lister to create another bookmark.





Repeat steps 8 to 11 until your model is fully annotated with design feedback.
Review the different annotated views by cycling through the bookmarks using the Prev and Next buttons in the Bookmark Lister.