Provides options for selecting a light source, light color, and light angle for illuminating the objects in the workspace.
The software provides you with a graphical method for selecting a light source. There are seven black light bulb icons and one gray light bulb icon arranged in 45-degree increments around a circle. The center of the circle is the area to which the light is directed. The light bulb icon that you select determines the angle of the light source. The gray light bulb icon is the 45-degree default. In the illustration below, the circled bulb represents the selected bulb.
The box beside the icon of the seated user at the monitor allows you to select the plane of projection for the light by selecting a number from the list. Therefore, if you first select the 45-degree default bulb and then select 60 from the list, the workspace is illuminated at a 45-degree angle on a 60-degree plane.
Ambient
Controls the ambient reflectivity of a material, that is, the degree to which the ambient lighting in the overall model is reflected by the surface of the material. The total ambient light value of a surface is calculated by multiplying the ambient reflectivity value by the model ambient light setting. The ambient reflectivity value can range from 0 to 1, where 0 is no ambient light reflected and 1 is full ambient reflectivity.
For example, if the overall ambient light setting for the model is set to 1.0, and a material has an ambient reflectivity value of 0.10, model elements using that material have an effective ambient lighting value of 10%. A lower ambient light value causes the shadows that fall on the material to be dark, with a high contrast between the directly and indirectly lit areas. A higher ambient light value results in a more uniformly lit surface, fainter shadows, and less overall contrast in lighting. This setting would be desirable, for example, if you wished to create a bright, uniformly lit ceiling in a room.
You can use the color mixer to select the color of the ambient light.
Light
Provides eight parallel light sources with a predefined angular position around the view vector. You can select each light and then define its color using the color mixer. The color of each light bulb represents its true color, which is user-definable.
Light angle
Defines the angle of light to the view vector for a selected light. The default value is 30.
Red, Green, Blue
Adjusts the amount of red, green, and blue by typing values in the value box or using the sliders.
Hue, Saturation, Intensity
Adjusts the amount of color saturation and intensity to apply by typing values in the value box or using the sliders.
This tab is only shown when the Use default lights check box on the Display tab is cleared in the Format View dialog box.