#Extruding colors??
7 messages in this thread
A question on a possible "weird" application of 3DS.
I do finite element analysis of power plant components. One of the results
that I obtain is
usually a "pretty" color picture of the stress or temperature within the
component. Typically
the pictures are contours, with RED being the high stress region, BLUE being
the low stress
region, and a dozen or so intermediate colors showing intermediate regions. I
am interested
in modelling components so as to display the stress contours on the component.
For example, assume that I am analyzing a boiler wall tube – it has combustion
conditions on
the front side, insulation on the backside, and steam thru the center of the
hole. I would analyze
this by making a 2-D model of the tube – basically a flat donut (a circle
within a circle). After
the analysis, I could obtain a picture of this flat donut with red areas of
high stress, blue areas,
intermediate areas, etc. However, it would be more dramatic for customer
presentations if I
could take this 2-D color picture of the tube cross-section and extrude it to
actually create a
3-D model of some length of tube. What I would need is for the part of the
tube which represents
the red portion of the 2-D picture to be red material, the part that represents
the blue portion of
the 2-D picture to be blue material, etc. Is there a quick and dirty way to
take this color picture of
a 2-D cross-section and "extrude" it so that the extruded portions pick up the
colors of the
original 2-D cross-section??
I'm afraid that I must also ask for a possible method that works with one hand
tied behind my back –
I have the EDU version (v2) of 3DS, and I can get parttime access to v3, but I
don't have v4, don't
have any IPAS, etc. (I have ACAD12 though, for the modelling, if that helps!)
Any hints would be appreciated – it may be that with my limited knowledge of
3DS (and limited docs
you should see what the EDU version DOESN'T have!) I have overlooked some
obvious technique.
thanks for any clues,
Dennis
P.S. I realize I might have given a wrong (and overly ambitious) impression of
my needs.
I do not necessarily need to animate the extrusion – what I really
need is a still picture of the
modelled component with the appropriate colored materials – a flyby
might be nice, but
watching it extrude is not necessary. So this is a MODELLING
question, not an animation
question (let's not make it any harder than necessary).
thanks again, for any hints]
Dennis
Dennis,
If I understand your application, you want to take a two dimensional color
contour plot of data (a bitmap, ie GIF, JPEG, TIFF or RAW) image and place it
on a three dimensional surface. I have done this with color contour plots of
data from pressure sensative paints and velocity measurment systems from wind
tunnels. This is a simple application of texture mapping. Start by making a
SCALE 3D model of your part. Then take the data and put it in a form 3DS will
recognize (I usually convert my 1 byte integer data to a GIF bitmap), and
create a material out of it in the Materials editor. I will make the material
100% self illuminating, and sometimes slightly transparent. Then the material
is mapped onto the surface as any other texture map would be. The result is a
contuor map applied directly to the three dimensional model. This task is easy
and powerful, once you have a good understanding of texture mapping.
I hope this a shot in the right direction. I have omitted several details,
feel free to ask if you want them.
Rich Schwartz
Rich,
Thanks – between you and David (other response) I think I understand – I don't
know why it never
occurred to me to use the picture as a material – duh!! (Probably because I
was just thinking
about it at work and 3DS is at home, along with all the books!)
Dennis
Dennis,
A tip for mapping data… If your data does not cover the entire rectangular
region of the bitmap, you can make any "empty space" black, or RGB 0,0,0 in the
bitmap.
Then in the materials editor, turn on the ADD (which disables SUB), and put the
transparency of the material to 1 or higher. Now all of the black sections
will become 100% transparent, leaving only the data (which is 99% opaque) to be
visible. This has worked well for me.
Rich
<<I would analyze this by making a 2-D model of the tube – basically a flat
donut (a circle within a circle). After the analysis, I could obtain a picture
of this flat donut with red areas of high stress, blue areas,
intermediate areas, etc. However, it would be more dramatic for customer
presentations if I
could take this 2-D color picture of the tube cross-section and extrude it to
actually create a
3-D model of some length of tube.>>
Take the image you made of the cross section with it's associated stresses.
Crop the image so the tube touchs all of the edges of the bitmap. The height of
the bitmap now represents the diameter of the tube.
In 3DS create a tube with Create/Object/Tube with the exact dimensions of the
tube you created in 2D. Then create a material using the cropped bitmap. Then
using planar mapping assign this material to the front of the tube. Hint: use
Surface/Mapping/Adjust/Scale with Alt+Click on the object to scale to the size
of the front of the tube.
The result will be the bitmap extended along the length of the tube as you
want.
DaviD "Red, yellow, orange, blue" GouID
David,
Ok, between you and Rich (other response) I understand – MAKE a MATERIAL from
the plot –
sometimes the answer is so simple that my peanut brain can't see it!
thanks for the assist!
Dennis