Export Image To Scale

[tlehnhaeuser]

Does anyone know a way or a trick how to export a rendered image from the 3D scene to an actual scale? Preferably 1:1.

 

Thanks

[Steven Velez]

Well, doesn't that all depend on your monitor resoultion and size.... or if you are printing?

[tlehnhaeuser]

Yeah, I know its a funny request, but I figured IronCAD already knows is physical dimensions, that maybe theres a way to get it to export to a size.

i think this should turn into an ER where a print/export utility from 3D would be nice where you can "scan" a portion of the screen, "whole" screen etc... and the utility will asl for scale, quailty, etc..

this is a tough one, I know

Tom

 

PS: What I tried is extract "logos" from part and made in stanadlone scene, rendered, export bmp, created 1:1 dwg, overlapped bmp on view and visually rezied to overlap. REsults, don't know yet as for quality.

[Robert Andersson]

Is taking a screendump enough?

And then in Photoshop, New/ Paste.

 

 

[tlehnhaeuser]

Hi Robert,

How would I ensure complete dimensional accuracy?

[Steven Velez]

This question has bugged me all weekend, and here's what I came up with:

 

Since you can't get an image where every part of a model is at actual scale in perspective-correct viewing, then I am assuming you want an orhtographic projection.

 

Now that we can use orthographic, simply create a drawing that has paper dimensions to fit your part, and add one (or more views) to the drawing at 1:1 scale... then shade them.

 

Once you have a drawing with 1-1 views, export the drawing to a graphic format, specify the resolution of the image to be the resolution of your monitor (or the monitor on which the image will be displayed) in dpi, and set the size of the image to equal the size of sheet that you created.

 

Now the question is, how do you get the right resolution? Well, that's tricky... the most reliable way is probably to measure the physical width of your display screen (don't include those black areas that may be present, and make sure that your display doesn't stretch off the edges of what your monitor can display) once you have that divide the number of horizontal pixels of your display (e.g. the 1024 in 1024 x 728) by the physical width of your display. It goes without saying that you may need to do a unit conversion. So, why is that tricky? I mean it's just simple math right? Yes, but it's labor intensive () and I personally can never seem to find a ruler or a measuring tape when I need one. So, one would probably like to have software to do this calculation, right? Well, Windows does have functions for this (GetDeviceCaps), but the problem with that is any value that you get from that is highly dependant on wether your monitor setting are corrrectly configured (is it the right brand and all that)... and even then you could get slightly wrong results if your particular monitor settings aren't exactly what the manufacturer intended, add to that the question of wether this image will be displayed on the monitor on which it was generated and it becomes a somewhat useless number. So, stick to the ruler-and-calculator method.

 

Hope this helps

 

[tlehnhaeuser]

Hi Steven,

I tried this, but couldn;t nail down a crisp enough image for functional purposes.

 

BTW - heres an email sent to me for posting since neal had some trouble loggin on. Enjoy

 

"Hi Tom,

For some reason I couldn’t reply to your post on the IronCad site. You are right, since IronCad already knows the physical dimensions of the part; you should be able to print an image to scale. Besides IronCad, I use Powershape from Delcam because I do many freeform shapes. Powershape has the ability to print an image to scale (which is set up directly through the page setup option).

Unfortunately, when I print the image to file, it no longer keeps the accurate scale or I could do an image for you. It has to go directly to the printer. I would put the request into the enhancement requests.

Regards,

Neal Jamnik

 

[Steven Velez]

Hi Steven,

I tried this, but couldn;t nail down a crisp enough image for functional purposes.

8648[/snapback]

 

Hrm.. well, I did get my IronCAD in to a usable state so I was able to try out my own advice. MY results were less than satisfactory.... since my monitor has a 92.25 dpi resolution in one dimension and a 101.1 dpi resolution in the other, my exported image was only dimensionally accurate in one dimension. I tried to massage the image size and since ironcad doesn't really let you specify a non-aspect locked viewing window, was not able to improve the results... I uploaded my attempt (Generated for a 19" monitor at 1280 x 1024 resolution)

 

I guess you could fitz with your monitor settings so that it has the same resolution in both dimensions, but Windows does not make this easy, if it is even possible.

 

Anyway, I'm curious about your statement that you couldn't get a "crisp enough" image... of course you are going to have some blockiness (known as aliasing) in the image because you are displaying on an inherently low-res device (the monitor)... are you expecting this and you desire anti-aliasing? Or are you expecting printer quality output on the screen?