I'm a student and have been working on a sculpture this quarter.  I've had a hard time visualizing the form, so a friend recommended I use SolidWorks to prototype.  I'm a new user but have some experience with Inventor. This might not be the right discussion section for my question, but maybe someone can point me in the right direction. 

I'm trying to model the shadow cast by an object.  I was wondering if there's a way to trace a component's shadow in a plane some distance away from a light source.  Or is there any way to draw the silhouette of a component from the perspective of my choosing?