Landscape Photos

[DanielBEE]

Well, I was asked to take a picture of this house and try to carve it. Not 2.5D so nothing super complicated, just a quick light v-groove sketch.

Before I jump into this trying to figure out the best way to go, does anyone have any recommendations?

I was going to pull it into photoshop, crop it the best I can, take out the trees in front, and then pull it into aspire and just outline vectors from bitmap, is that the easiest route?

Thanks,
Daniel

[gravirozo]

hello

the easiest (when you work with a few click only) photovcarve...
all other too many work... the "simplest" make a very shallow relief with aspire...

the next, vectorizing... and trying a vcarve (can be hours)...

the best level, to make model... for us a dream... (can be days)


thanks
viktor

[JamesB]

Hi Daniel,

if that is the best quality image you have then I am not sure how well any automatic processing is going to work (either vector fittiing in Aspire or photo-v-carve as Viktor suggested). As its pretty low res. I don't think any of the lines you want will be picked up. About the only thing I can see working is either just sketching the vectors over it in Aspire which would be time consuming but accurate. Or it may even be quicker to print it out, put a piece of tracinig paper over it, take a black sharpie and a rule and mark all the key lines to make your own sketch picking out the main shapes you need. Then scan this and vector fit it. Either way its going to be pretty manual with that image.

Cheers,
James

[DanielBEE]

Thanks for the advice guys,

I don't have photoVcarve, so that option is out. I cropped it down and brought it down, fitting vectors to it doesn't really work, the only thing that looked halfway descent was the outline.

I think I'll try printing it out and haveing someone more artistically more able than myself to trace it. Then I will try scanning it in and see how that works.

Thanks again guys =)

Daniel

[GripUs]

Not too bad for just a little work...

Joe

[moto633]

Dang Joe!!!
Was that in PVC?

Daniel better get out your wallet!

Can't wait to see this one cut!
Post more pics!
Nick

[GripUs]

Nick,
That was actually done in Aspire.

I took it into Corel Photopaint and removed the sky/clouds. I then went in and increased the contrast a fair amount and the saturation just a little.

I imported it into Aspire and had it make a component from the working model.

It only took a few minutes and I didn't toolpath it so I don't know how it would cut.

That's all there was to it.

Joe

[DanielBEE]

Oh wow, when you pulled the vectors from bitmap what settings did you use exactly? Everytime I did it I got a blob. I guess also, what resolution did you set it to in Corel, I have Gimp which is freeware version of Photoshop, but I think I can do the same.

Thanks =)

[DanielBEE]

Well, I had someone try to hand trace the house, but they didn't have a very good set up to be able to see through the paper very well. What we would probably need is a table that lights up your paper from underneath.

So, I ended up pulling the Bitmap file into PCDraft, which is the 2D drawing program my boss has been using for years (since he doesn't know how to use Aspire). He then traced all the lines he wanted and cleaned it up really well.

I then took a screen shot of his drawing full size and made it into a bitmap in MS Paint. I then pulled that bitmap into Aspire, and fit vectors to the bitmap. I ended up losing some of the vectors, but most of it came out. I then applied a Vgroove bit to the vectors.

I didn't actually run it with the house on it yet, my boss wants to clean it up some to get more of the lines in there. Either, he is going to need to learn how to use Aspire, or I'm going to need to learn how to trace =)

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

[GripUs]

Hi Daniel,
I am sorry I didn't get back sooner. I just missed this one.

When I had the picture in Corel, I set the resolution to 200 dpi. I cranked up the contrast a little, exactly how much I am not sure. That is kinda like "a pinch of salt" in a recipe. I also converted it to a greyscale.

When I imported it into Aspire, I kept moving the slider bar back and forth until I thought I had the most detail I could get.

Regards,

Joe

[DanielBEE]

So how do we look?

Up close the lines make me wonder.. but if you back up a bit.. it almost looks like a style was intended.

[DanielBEE]

I guess I should add.. After fitting vectors to the bitmap, basically what it does is turns on the traced lines into little rectangles. So what I did was zoom in to all the places that didn't look right after the vectorizin, deleted the rectangles I didn't want (some of the diagnols got converted into several tiny rectangles stacking up in a diangnal shape.. which I didn't like because I knew my VGroove Bit would end up staggering.

So I what I did from there was go back in and draw lines whereever I was missing parts of the house, I then offset the lines just a hair and joined both ends to make it into a slanted box basically. The same worked for the curved lines too, offset and close.

Anyways took all those and applied a Vgroove cut to it and was good to go! Took about an hour to run the sign 20"x8.5".

-Daniel

[GripUs]

Daniel,
A most excellent piece of work! I would say you set out to do something, taught yourself how and finished it admirably.

I try not to look too closely at a lot of my stuff (other than the grips). We use a very liberal interpretation of the "10 foot rule" around here.

Regards,

Joe

[DanielBEE]

We use a very liberal interpretation of the "10 foot rule" around here.

Hmm, I think I might attempt to instatute that rule around here.. =)