Import/Trace Logos
7 messages in this thread
Steven,
Thanks so much for a terrific course! It was well worth the trip. I have one
question, and I posted this publicly in case anyone else knows the answer.
I mentioned having a bitmap of a corporate logo and needing to get it into 3DS.
You had a method that I could use that would put the bitmap in the background
and allow me to trace it. I've been able to do this in RIO and in Corel Draw,
but when I import the files, they're way to complex. Thousands of vertices!
Any help is appreciated.
Brent Bonet – POP! Multimedia Atlanta
>>Thousands of vertices!
In Corel, I_think_it's a result of exporting your object filled with a color;
as long as I've exported ai's with no fill and the thinnest line, I haven't had
that problem.
John Stetzer
JWS
You can import an image into the shaper module and trace around it, if you
wish.
So, how would I import something like a TGA or BMP? Does it have to be an AI
or DXF file? Brent Bonet – POP! Multimedia Atlanta
It's a little obscure, and I was a touch off with my terminology. It's covered
on pages 3-58 and 3-59 of the manual. You assign a background image as usual in
the 3D editor or keyframer, then go to the 2dshaper, select See Background from
the pulldown Views menu. You can use Adjust Background to adjust the contrast
of the "proxy" background. The background can be any of the file types
supported by 3DS for direct use as a background.
Once the proxy image is displayed, you can trace around it. You can't zoom in
to trace in more accurate detail, this throws the background image out of size
with the tracing. But you can, of course, refine the shape(s) after the basic
tracing has been done.
Hope this helps you out, Gary
Brent,
My company produces a program called CaddView which will allow you to manually
trace over a raster image with lines, arcs, circles and complex curves and then
output that vector drawing in DXF format for importing into ACAD. It allows
you to zoom in and out while tracing and to shut the raster image on/off while
tracing. The complex curve tracing tool makes tracing very fast and easy.
It is a stand alone program and will work with any size raster image.
The demo of the program is here in the Utilities library. It is called
CADDVU.EXE. Download it and see if it will work for you. The program can be
upgraded on the phone from a demo to a full functioning version.
It is very modestly priced.
Jim/CaddView
Hi Brent,
Thanks for the compliment on the course. I'm slowly coming out of my post
class hibernation after nine days of instruction.
I see that others on the forum had the answers for you. The method that I
demonstrated was to select the bit map as a background image and then turn
on See Background in the Shaper. Of course, as mentioned here, you can't zoom
or pan your view without messing things up.
Another possibility would be to bring the Corel generated file into the
Shaper, Freeze it, and then trace over it. The advantage here is that you can
zoom and pan all you want. If you run out of vertices you can set the
SHAPE-MAX setting in the 3DS.SET file to a higher number.
Steven