#3DS render like plotter?
14 messages in this thread
I am trying to get my wireframe renders in 3DS r3 to print out with crispness
of a plotter and I need some help.
I'm trying to emulate an earlier body of my artwork in which I used a CAD
program to output wireframes to a Protracer C size inkjet plotter/printer using
HPGL. The plotter's max resolution is 360 dpi and can be configured to print
HPGL or Postscript. These earlier drawings were very crisp with clean jet
black lines. I used different pen line settings to acheive different line
widths and the resulting images looked very graphic, very much like wood block
prints with saturated wide black lines.
When I render my wire frames materials of varying thicknesses in 3DS I render
out to 640X480 gif, tga, or tif; and I take the images into Photostyler to
print. I've tried resampling, and resizing, but Pstyler wants to antialias the
lines and the edges become fuzzy when they are printed with the Postscript
emulation card on the Protracer printer/plotter.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to accomplish the look I'm after?
Also how does one have 3DS render to a higher resolution than 640×480? I've
looked in my vibcfg file and cant call up anything with higher res.
Can I set 3DS to output to a plotter that uses HPGL?
I'm on a deadline here, and this afternoon while looking up some stuff in the
manual I lost an hour reading about some features I didn't know about (g). I
gotta stay away from that manual!
Seriously though, I saw the section on other drivers for output but didn't
really understand it.
Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Carlton
3DS cannot output vector data to a plotter like a CAD program can. You can
render your wireframes (or anything else) to higher resolutions for output to
your Protracer by rendering to a null video display and setting the resolution
manually, both settings are in Renderer/Setup in the 3D Editor. For that type
of output though, you're probably better off sending your model back to AutoCAD
and plotting to HPGL directly. Be aware that the disk files you'll need to
generate for the output quality you're used to are going to be enormous.
m.
Michael
Thanks for the reply. Those enormous files are what I'm experiencing. I just
wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something.
Carlton
In addition to what Michael said, You could try rendering to a fairly high
resolution (say, 1k-2k lines, and you'll need to use the NULL driver in
Render/Configuration/Setup to render to a higher resolution than your video
driver) and import it into CorelTrace, where you can use centerline mode. This
will give you a pretty clean vector file from which you may plot easily,
especially if your plotter has a Windows driver.
Hope this helps,
-Alan
Alan-
In my prior post I assumed CorelTrace was a module in Corel Draw. Is it? Or
is it a seperate Corel program.
Thanks Again,
Carlton
Last time I looked, it was both. That is, there was a subset in Corel Draw plus
a more fully featured utility that was bundled with the software.
I'll check it out. Tonight I'll try ACAD r12.
Thanks,
Carlton
The Yost Group has your answer, Carlton.
I was definitely refering to the seperate module, CorelTrace, which works
pretty decently in Centerline mode on clean, high-res black line art-on-white
bitmaps.
-Alan
Thanks Alan,
I don't have Corel. Any other ideas for conversion from bitmap to vector?
By the way does Corel support HPGL? I guess I'll see if my plotting service
will plot from my 3DS DXF file. Or I could reload Autocad (sigh).
Carlton
Autocad might be the answer for you then, unless you can get someone to bring
your 3DS-generated .DXF file into a vector-oriented program and plot it for
you.
-Alan
I reloaded Acad and it worked like a charm. I'd had mixed results converting
dxf to and from 3DS using another CAD program and I began to suspect dxf.
Again and again the stability of 3DS impresses me.
3DS has me spoiled. Now of course I want to call around to post houses to see
how crisp a rendered image with a wire frame material I can get.
I plan to look into Corel trace.
BTW, Its nice to make your acquaintance. I've been lurking and filing your
suggestions for so long I should acknowledge all your good advice.
Many thanks,
Carlton
Thanks for the nice words, Carlton.
Here's a thought:
If you rendered a large (say, 4k) file using Wire Frame materials on a white
backround, you will get pretty decent results plotting to an ink-jet plotter
like the HP 650C from a standard Windows app like PhotoShop or CorelDraw. It
would have to be seen just how large a plot you could make before pixelization
starts to set in, but I'm sure it would look nice up to a fairly decent size.
-Alan
If you still have your CAD application, (Like AutoCAD or AcadLT), I 3DS you can
easily create DXF (Save .DXF) files of your 3D Models and DXFIN them to the CAD
package then plot them from there – and with either of the ACADs you add hidden
line removal to the plot as well.
J-me
Thanks Jamie,
I've got ACAD r12, but I took it off my HD months ago to free up some more
space. I had a bear of a time configuring it to run on my Gateway the first
time, and I haven't missed it since I got 3DSr3. I guess its time to reload
and feed the machine all those floppies. (g)
Carlton Thanks Jamie,
I've got ACAD r12, but I took it off my HD months ago to free up some more
space. I had a bear of a time configuring it to run on my Gateway the first
time, and I haven't missed it since I got 3DSr3. I guess its time to reload
and feed the machine all those floppies. (g)
Carlton