Renders and Animations of PCBs

[Schottky]

Hi All, I would like to share some renders and animations of some of my PCBs. I've tried including as much detail as I can, such as cables, connectors, solder joints, and probes. I think creating these types of renders can help a lot when you are presenting your work to others and to show how everything works together, and also showing off  . The 3D viewers in Altium and Kicad are great, but I feel more can be done.

These PCBs were designed in Altium, all the 3D models were created in Blender, no STEP files. Let me know what you think

[Dave]

Really rather neat. Just needs solder fillets.

[ebclr]

Impressive, But next time try to solder the components, not place only

[SVFeingold]

These look fantastic! Really well done. I'll offer a few tips from my MCAD/Blender/rendering experiences.

1) Try out Luxrender. It's pretty amazing and IMO makes it incredibly easy to get photorealistic results (once your materials are set up properly). I think it's perfect for this.
2) Seconding the comments on solder fillets. Definitely would be a pain in the ass but it's not so bad to make complex shapes in Blender. Figure you just need to make a couple and then scale them.
3) One trick I picked up was to hit every sharp edge with a fillet. Even in high-res, high-quality renders (especially in those, actually) those infinitely-sharp edges are always a give away and make things look very artificial even when you can't put your finger on why. It's the edges! Even if they're supposed to be relatively sharp (like those header pins) it will help to throw a tiny fillet on there. Think like...10-50 microns. Try it out, it makes a big difference.

Really though, great work! You say you didn't use STEP files. How'd you export them to Blender?

[Schottky]

Thanks for your comments.

So I have had a go at adding solder to the pads, see the image below, this is a first attempt, and it will get better 



All these renders are done with Eevee on an old GTX1050 graphics card, and they render very fast less than 10seconds. I have tried Luxrender but I'm not able to make it work with the materials that I have. I prefer to continue to use Eevee since I am planning to create animations and videos

I have created all the 3D models myself in Blender, lockdown was productive!  . Most of the STEP files when imported in blender have a very dense mesh and slow things down significantly. See below the wireframe of one of the renders

[Schottky]

some animations and videos


https://youtu.be/Pg6XKaCXXf8  (done using animation nodes)


https://youtu.be/-VKFxFv5bMk


https://youtu.be/GXJOecc4O14


https://youtu.be/v6yWPeVkFzk

[SVFeingold]

Oh wow you recreate everything in Blender? That's some dedication. I usually just use manufacturer models unless they're not available. Does replicating from scratch for more complex parts save time over just decimating OEM models?

Seriously though these look really nice. Being able to communicate ideas effectively is an often-overlooked engineering skill. Some of the animations are a bit cheesy IMO but that's basically a requirement when you get into any kind of creative arena. You make cheesy stuff for a little bit.

Looking forward to seeing more work from you.

[Schottky]

A few more renders! This time with better solder on pads, and rendering simulation and experimental data!

You can view more here images and animations here  https://high_voltage.artstation.com/

[ASQ20]

The animation looks greats, I subscribed to your youtube channel, if you ever create a full tutorial on how to do the renders I'll be watching it for sure :-)

[tooki]

A few more renders! This time with better solder on pads, and rendering simulation and experimental data!

Very cool 3D work! But FYI, that’s not how solder should look — those aren’t solder fillets, and little pillows of solder would actually be indicative of soldering process failure.

[BitsnBytes]

Really Impressive. Thanks for sharing, most people share image of PCBs on their profile like freelancer, linkedin and they looked really amazing and I didn't know why my 3d of PCB didn't look that realistic. Now I know why... Thanks again I have started learning Blender.

Regards.

[jonovid]

A few more renders! This time with better solder on pads, and rendering simulation and experimental data!

Very cool 3D work! But FYI, that’s not how solder should look — those aren’t solder fillets, and little pillows of solder would actually be indicative of soldering process failure.

so lets look at your beautiful pcb art work , congratulations you have Blender under your command.
have you wrangled them water shaders ?   liquid shaders are your soldier.  getting the right liquid surface tension
is key here. and the color of copper is ,  artistic licence

Blender is a strange beast indeed. I have had one or more versions of Blender on my PC for yrs.
its 110% free!  its so powerful and packed with many professional CGI features. however its a nightmare to learn its bewildering array of inputs.
IMO its very confusing and difficult to understand how to drive this software. finding the Undo or back command. just knowing what mode your in,
navigating the maze of drop-down lists looking for that command you need so your 3 day 30 hr project is not lost or messed up by a miss-used command.
as an artist knowing what to make is not a problem. the challenge is making this software submit to my will & desire.
as an artist we have the right to farce the 3D CGI world into our submission. wire mesh can be a mess with over-extrusion so we need to add to it
over-contract wire mesh and you may have a solid lump of wire .    broken polygons  wire ends going nowhere.  snap to grid now were is it.

Blender as CAD software not the best at getting scale & size right. a requirement for anything Not Alice in wonderland. including big white rabbits.
so if you need that 0.01 mm scale & size it will be a challenge IMO

[Schottky]

Blender is certainly not a straightforward software, there is a huge learning curve, however once you know how to use it properly and memorise all the hotkeys then things start to move quicker. Additionally, every new version is becoming much easier to use and more powerful. My workflow involves using some addons which speed up things significantly and make Blender much more fun. Check these addons, highly recommended:
https://blendermarket.com/products/hard-ops--boxcutter-ultimate-bundle
https://blendermarket.com/products/definitely-eevee-materials-system
https://blendermarket.com/products/kit-ops-pro-asset--kitbashing-addon
https://blendermarket.com/products/MESHmachine

[Schottky]

Power module render!

Got the idea for this from a video by mikeselectricstuff

[Schottky]

[Schottky]

[exe]

No flux residue solder splashes on boards?

[Schottky]

No flux residue solder splashes on boards?

I'm working on that! 

[ebastler]

Beautiful renderings and lighting!

But my personal favorite is the "Good" jumper on the board in reply #14. I had clearly forgotten to add that to my PCB layouts so far...

[exe]

Power module render!

How do you do dirt and scratches?

[Schottky]

Quote from: exe on April 16, 2021, 07:54:21 am

>Quote from: Schottky on March 08, 2021, 11:04:02 am

Power module render!

How do you do dirt and scratches?

Mostly using textures and displacement maps

[Schottky]

My wireless power setup from 2015, this is a Class EF inverter and Class EF rectifier operating at 27.12MHz. I've also rendered the FEM data for the magnetic fields. You can read my paper about this setup here https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7445230

You can check more of my artwork and renders on ArtStation https://www.artstation.com/high_voltage

[Schottky]

EPC9146 – 400 W Motor Drive Demo Board


https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Qr5eQL

[Schottky]

[exe]

Looks nice!

All leds are lit at the same time? That's suspicions. USB sockets looks too square. The edge of the board is too good . I just looked at my raspberry pi, it has mouse bites and some visible pcb layers.