Cathederal Arch

[blackte]

Anyone happen to have a design similar to the attached? I'm trying to pull this into VCarve and build from the Trace process, but it's not the best picture and it's not rendering out very well. I though I would check with the community first, before I attempt to draw from scratch. The CRV file is attached.

I have a client that would like to carve this and apply this panel to the end of a cabinet.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[garylmast]

I could edit all the vectors, but that's something you should learn. In this case, select all the vectors and move them to another layer by selecting them, then right clicking. Turn off the Bitmap layer. Select the vector, then ungroup them by hitting "U". You have duplicate vectors, which you hit them, you can tell by the overlap. Those you should delete. Select the vector, then hit "N" to get into Node edit. From there you can correct the shapes.

Another way, in which I would probably do, is just draw them, which would probably be faster...taking only a few minutes. Any minor adjustments do with the node editor.

Gary

[Adrian]

That's a very simple shape to manually trace. You'll get much better results by doing it that way than trying to work from vectors traced from an image that poor.

http://support.vectric.com/tips-and-tri ... ideo_id=16

[blackte]

Gary & Adrian,

Thanks for the info. I'm unfortunately a newbie with VCarve. I have been working with it off and on for about 6 months. I have watched all of the tutorials and just have not had a lot of time to play and experiment with the product. I will give it a go and see how it comes out.

Thanks for your comments.

[4DThinker]

Not knowing how big your client wanted it, I drew up vectors you can scale as needed. I imported your photo, scaled it to my arbitrary material size, then used the measuring tool to measure the width of the perimeter frame and the internal dividers. For my 20" x 20" layout the perimeter is 1.5" wide and the dividers are 5/8" wide. The geometry is fairly simple when you study it a bit. I used the arc tool, offset tool, mirror tool, and guidelines to lay it out. Feel free to use it as needed.

4D

[WNC_Ed]

Looking at the image my first "strategy" thought on drawing the center vectors - not the frame:
was to make a rectangle copy it 3 times, make the "Gothic triangle" copy it three times, make the center diamond and copy it twice ...
there would be a lot of effort in getting them spaced correctly...
But somewhere in there it occurred to me to instead draw the center "Y" and copy it twice which would be a lot faster and easier.
What strategy would the more experienced folks use?

[4DThinker]

One side of all the internal arc segments are just copies of the internal perimeter arc. I mostly just copied that arc, slid it over, trimmed, mirrored to the other side. The trickiest drafting part was to end up with even internal spaces.

4D

[blackte]

Thanks guys, I appreciate all of your comments and work.

[tomgardiner]

Google the geometry of a Gothic arch and I am sure you will find the radius to opening width ratio so you can layout perfect arch proportions.

[SteveNelson46]

This should be to the scale of your bitmap. I evened out the spacing and the lines.

[TReischl]

I don't want to ruffle any feathers or insult anyone.

That said, there are rules as to how these things are drawn, they are not just random.

Secondly, that picture will quickly lead to a lot of frustration, it is tilted and at an angle so very little on it can be trusted. For instance, the top outer radius should be a circle, instead it is an ellipse which is a huge clue as to the picture being out of whack.

Drawing these is pretty straightforward. The first thing to remember is that this is a window of sorts. It has to fit into something. So there is no point in tracing a picture, besides it is purely an exercise in geometric construction.

What you need is the overall length and width of the finished piece. Then you need the width of the outer frame members. These will be the same all the way around otherwise the window will look goofy. Lastly you need the width of the muntins (the smaller cross members. And here is how it goes:

I would not use the one posted by 4DThinker (sorry 4D) or by Steve (sorry Steve). They both have variances in width going around the frame of about .08 which is quite a bit. I posted the images in my next post because 6 is the limit.

[TReischl]

Here is what I found with the one posted by 4D:

Steve's:

Note and Edit: You cannot really follow the standard gothic arch proportions because the outside is fixed and the interior has already been defined as 4 spaces.

[tomgardiner]

This may be an optical illusion but it appears that the muntons are thicker in cross section where the two central arcs cross and meet the frame. I would be tempted to taper these elements to keep the apparent uniformity. On the other hand the illusion might disappear in full scale.

[TReischl]

This may be an optical illusion but it appears that the muntons are thicker in cross section where the two central arcs cross and meet the frame. I would be tempted to taper these elements to keep the apparent uniformity. On the other hand the illusion might disappear in full scale.

If you were talking about the drawing I did, heck it is flat out klunky! I was not trying to provide an elegant design but show how to create the geometry. You are probably right, the bottom end points of those arcs could be moved a tad but then things would start getting a bit weird. When I do something like this I keep in mind most of these designs were done by guys with compasses and straight edges. The way I see it once a person has it geometrically correct then things can be tuned up to be more pleasing to the eye.

[4DThinker]

I would not use the one posted by 4DThinker (sorry 4D) or by Steve (sorry Steve). They both have variances in width going around the frame of about .08 which is quite a bit. I posted the images in my next post because 6 is the limit.

Not quite sure what you did to my vectors to declare them wrong, Ted. My external frame is constantly 1.5" wide. Created by drawing the outer perimeter then using a 1.5" offset to make the inner. The width of all my internal lower rectangles are the same. I didn't trace the drawing, but rather only used it to find the two relative widths used. My drawing is symmetrical as the right half is a mirrored copy of the left half. The peaks of all the arches are evenly spaced across the width. The arch widths are all the same as they started with one side and were offset to get the other side by the same amount. You appear to have stretched and scaled my vectors.

4D