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Visualization is a very important aspect of Pro/ENGINEER. With shaded views, you can view assemblies that are much more pleasing to the eye than hidden or wireframe views. Shading can also aid in orienting the part on the screen. When shading profile views, however, the colors generally appear bright white and washed out—especially when they are similar in shade. That’s because of the setting for the angle and direction of the default light in Pro/ENGINEER.
This tip explains how to change and save a more desirable setting for the default light. Bold words or phrases are Pro/ENGINEER menu picks and “quoted” words or phrases are typed commands. These instructions work for Pro/ENGINEER 2001 and Wildfire except as noted.
1. Start Pro/ENGINEER and open a simple part to enable the Model Setup menu selection.
2. Change to a profile view such as Top or Side (Fig. 1).
Figure 1
3. To see the difference, rotate the part or assembly to an iso view. The colors are more clearly distinguishable (Fig. 2).
Figure 2
4. Now return the model to a profile view and open the View menu. Choose Model Setup and then Lights (Fig. 3).
Figure 3
5. From the Lights dialog box, select the Direction aspect of the light.
6. Select the Edit the Selected Light button at the bottom of the Lights dialog box (Fig. 4).
Figure 4
7. The Light Editor dialog box is where you adjust the direction or Longitude and Latitude position of the light (Fig. 5). Make sure the Dynamically Update Model box is checked.
Figure 5
8. If it is not already open, expand the Direction box. Now drag the Longitude and Latitude scroll wheels to the left or right, watching the highlight (white spot) in the dynamic window. Moving the sliders from the default position eliminates the bright white or washed-out colors in the profile views. (I typically use positive values of 25-30 for both Longitude and Latitude settings, but experiment to find the settings that work best for you.) As you adjust these values, the main Pro/ENGINEER window will also update if you are in shaded mode.
9. Once you have decided on the light direction, hit OK from the Light Editor dialog box. This returns to the Lights dialog box.
10. To save these settings, choose the File drop-down menu from the Lights dialog box and choose Save (Fig. 6). The updated light position appears in the Dynamically Update Model window.
Figure 6
11. You will be prompted for a filename and location for the settings you just created. If you are using Pro/INTRALINK, specify a local directory for the configuration file on your hard drive. I have set up a mapkey to load this file after I start Pro/ENGINEER.
12. To load the light config file you created, open the part or assembly model and choose View from the pull-down menu. Select Model Setup, then Lights… After the Lights dialog box opens, choose the File pull-down menu and choose Open… From there you will be prompted for the location and filename of the lights config file. After choosing the file, select Open from the file browsing dialog box. Then select Close from the Lights dialog box.
13. After you’ve changed the light orientation, return the assembly to a front view. You’ll be able to see what a difference it makes (Fig. 7).
Figure 7
1. Changing the default light in Wildfire follows the same procedure as Pro/ENGINEER 2001 except that the Light Editor dialog box is more enhanced (Fig. 8).
Figure 8
2. After opening the Light Editor, click on the Position tab at the middle-right of the dialog box (Fig. 9).
Figure 9
3. With the light’s Position tab open, you can closely adjust the lights location and target position. The steps for saving and retrieving are the same as in Pro/ENGINEER 2001. 
Jason Taylor is a senior mechanical engineer at NCR Corporation in Duluth, Georgia, USA. He can be reached by e-mail at Jason.Taylor@ncr.com.
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