Biopowered - vegetable oil and biodiesel forum
General => Chatter => Topic started by: GedsJeep on December 31, 2014, 12:11:23 AM
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i need to commission a shaded picture to be made up from three photos.
does anyone know anyone who can help?
i will also need that picture transferring to 3mm brass plate if anyone can help with that.
this is for a memorial to my best mate who passed away on sunday.
thanks
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Sorry to hear of your loss.
By shaded do you mean tones or just light and dark areas like black and white pop-art?
Were you thinking of engraving or etching the brass or something more in the way of printing?
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thank you.
this sounds mad when you say it out loud.......
John was an old village copper from wales. proper old school. he was also very involved in developing offroad modifications for the lada niva. (his niva was probably the most capable offroad vehicle i know, and ive been offroading all my life). it was also a LHD.
he would spend his days caring for his wife who has MS or driving the greenlanes around wales. as it was a lhd niva, he would take james with him. james was a two foot tall panda, complete with hi viz, hat and pipe. many amusing moments we had watching ramblers remonstrating a giant panda for being offroad....
i have a pic of him, one of his car and one of james. i need someone who could put them all together in a good quality line drawing probably? i want it identifiable as him and james. then we have the etching (correct term??) problem.
the pic needs to be transferred to the brass, and the brass then cut to the shape of the niva.
i can do the line drawing on photoshop, but its the putting the images together that i cant.
ged
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I'll gladly help where I can. I'm OK with line graphics, but struggle a bit with photo manipulation.
I use Corel Draw a great deal. Therein is a facility which will trace bitmap images into line art (vector format) After that putting a couple of images together should be easy.
If you email me the photos (mail address is in my forum details), I'll have a play and see if it's the sort of thing you're after. You obviously have a picture in your mind of what you want the finished item to look like, so a scanned sketch or further detailed description would help a lot.
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Sorry to hear of your loss, sounds like one hell of a bloke!
Makes me want to get a niva, was looking at the a while ago.
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I'll gladly help where I can. I'm OK with line graphics, but struggle a bit with photo manipulation.
I use Corel Draw a great deal. Therein is a facility which will trace bitmap images into line art (vector format) After that putting a couple of images together should be easy.
If you email me the photos (mail address is in my forum details), I'll have a play and see if it's the sort of thing you're after. You obviously have a picture in your mind of what you want the finished item to look like, so a scanned sketch or further detailed description would help a lot.
thanks. im off out to work in a mo so will get them over to you rtomorrow.
cheerrs
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If your work is going to be vector, rather than bitmap, then i could probably cut the image for you.
I did not speak up initially, as 'pictures' are normally bitmap, but there's talk of vectors above...
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If your work is going to be vector, rather than bitmap, then i could probably cut the image for you.
I did not speak up initially, as 'pictures' are normally bitmap, but there's talk of vectors above...
That sound great, Julian. What sorts of file can you work with?
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hpgl is probably the simplest
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Great start! Never heard of it ... had to Google it to find out what it was.
However it would appear that my graphics software can export PLT files which are described as HPGL.
If it's OK, later I'll export a simple graphic and send you a copy to check you can open and use it.
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OK, just sent a test file.
I'd drawn the graphic with different pen widths, shapes and solid fill, but on exporting there were a plethora of options for pen qualities and fill plus a few other things. I used the standard settings but it may be necessary for you to stipulate what parameters your machine can use.
Let me know how you get on.
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Julian, just been doing a little Googling on file types and Corel and came across this ... http://www.frontpanelexpress.com/index.html
Seems like a good idea. I've seen the same done with PCBs and 3D printing. Is it a model you could follow with your business? The main stumbling block would be the software I suppose, but if you could accept common file formats, it might be viable.
I guess you could nick their software ... it's free to down load!
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Let me know how you get on.
123 123
...but i need to tell you more. Speak to you next year...
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err, its photo`s i have.....
does that matter?
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Let me know how you get on.
123 123
...but i need to tell you more. Speak to you next year...
There was a load of shapes and lines too. Looks like it only picked up the text.
I think you need to tell me more!
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err, its photo`s i have.....
does that matter?
Not really, you'll just need to scan them.
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I think you need to tell me more!
you have mail
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Ged,
It looks like Julianf and I might be singing from the same hymn sheet!
I just need the scans from you and Julianf a lump of brass, to get started. Might be best to sort out with Julianf what sort of brass ... I'm guessing the softer the better and also what thickness if you want the profile cut to a Niva shape.
Over to you!
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email sent
thank you everyone who has helped with kind words and advice.
you are all stars.
ged
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Nice one the two Julians
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Ged, you have an email with a proof attached ... let me know what you think!
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i dont know how that will translate to the brass mate. not being artistic in any way, i cant visualize it.
let me see what i can download and try
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Julianf may be able to advise better than me, but basically the black areas will be what's milled away.
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right, after messing with a copy of corel photopaint i came up with this.
(http://i754.photobucket.com/albums/xx184/gedsjeep/line2_zpscd3b55fd.jpg) (http://s754.photobucket.com/user/gedsjeep/media/line2_zpscd3b55fd.jpg.html)
(http://i754.photobucket.com/albums/xx184/gedsjeep/line1_zps25d68754.jpg) (http://s754.photobucket.com/user/gedsjeep/media/line1_zps25d68754.jpg.html)
now i dont know how much work is involved, or if its possible?
and i now have corel photopaint 6 if anyone wants it....
sorry if im not helping.
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i have just had this sent to me..
(http://i754.photobucket.com/albums/xx184/gedsjeep/hoodootheone_zps30f24f57.jpg) (http://s754.photobucket.com/user/gedsjeep/media/hoodootheone_zps30f24f57.jpg.html)
thats pretty much what we want.
is it too much or do able?
something like this
(http://i754.photobucket.com/albums/xx184/gedsjeep/edit1_zpsee8f5846.jpg) (http://s754.photobucket.com/user/gedsjeep/media/edit1_zpsee8f5846.jpg.html)
(http://i754.photobucket.com/albums/xx184/gedsjeep/edit2_zps283f8694.jpg) (http://s754.photobucket.com/user/gedsjeep/media/edit2_zps283f8694.jpg.html)
ok, thats the rough idea
is that too complicated?
how will it transfer to the brass
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have you thought about asking on reddit ?
and/or do you want me to ask on there ?
there's some pretty frecking awesome photo shop guys on there... and they regularly do things like this
(help people out, restore old photos, edit photos to remove medical equipment out of baby photos etc..)
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ok, thats the rough idea
is that too complicated?
how will it transfer to the brass
You have a few options -
Chemical etching will transfer the image pretty much as-is, but you will need someone with a large amount of skill to do the job accurately. There are not many people around who would be able to do this for you.
Miling will do the job, but also has its issues. The source file is probably too complex to get a nice result. Your dependant on cutters etc. and then you will get tool marks. Im not experienced with this (3d milling with ball nosed cutters etc) but i dont think you would get great results. This, however, is far more 'general' work, and you could ask about places like, for example, mould makers, to see if they think you would get nice results from your source material.
Engraving (which is what i do) would give you an approximation of what you want, but you need to work on the source material a lot more. Engraving is, basically, line art, so you would need to convert an image to 2 colour (eg black and white - NOT black, white, and a load of grey tones in between - just two colours) and then trace it to vector. This would result in something professional looking, but its dependant on the source material, and the amount of work put into it.
Here are a couple of examples -
This image -
(https://c7743.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/Images/large/RNI185.jpg)
was scanned, traced, and a load of the vectors discarded. It was then cut to these keyrings -
(http://thebeast.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/custom-engraving/keyrings.jpg)
Another example -
(http://www.amazona.de/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/10_wasp.jpg)
Scanned, traced, and cut to this -
(http://thebeast.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/custom-engraving/wasp_sample.jpg)
The key point with my work is that its lines. You can get good representations of images, but only with well edited source material. There is no application that will simply convert an image to nice line art - its manual work with decisions at all stages.
If you can get an image that you are happy with, as line art (vectors - eg plt / hpgl) then i can cut the job, but i cant do anything with bitmap (pixmap) images.
Where's our new new cnc king anyhow? I cant hear any trumpet at all...
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ok, now i sort of understand as i used to use flexi sign for making stickers and the same sort of rules apply.
whats reddit?
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Totally agree with what Julianf said. What I sent you were pure black and white images. All the half tones in your sketches aren't engraveable ... it's a sort of on or off discipline ie a cut line/area or the original face of the brass. You'll be amazed what a difference a few half tones make to the way our brains interpret an image. The software I used was Coreltrace. That looks at the bitmap, sets a dividing line between light and dark and adjusts the image to give just a black and white result. In the process you loose a great deal of detail, but do keep the overall impression of the original photo.
Just for the record this was my effort ...
(http://www.palmergroup.co.uk/Bio/Ged proof 1.jpg)
Bear in mind (pun!), this, and what I sent you, is a vector image converted into a jpg bitmap so everyone can view it, hence the line edges will be a little more fuzzy than the original vector.
The sort of engravings you see in old books, which is what I suspect what you were envisaging, were done by hand direct on to the printing plate and take days, possibly weeks to complete. Even then if you looked at the plate, it wouldn't be as clear as the black and white print. Etching may well get closer to what you want, but you still won't see the same contrast on the finished brass as you will in a printed proof. You can paint or wax fill engraved plates to give a little more contrast, but as you're mounting it out in the elements, that may not be viable.
Still happy to help were I can, but what you're after may be beyond my abilities.
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no mate, what you did was great. im just trying to work out how to get them inside the car?
its waayyyyy beyond my grasp mate, so please "bear" with my ignorance.
thanks guys...
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This is, im told, an engraving of Gibraltar -
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Gibraltar_engraving_1852.jpg)
I know of no software that can create a vector file like that, however, if you had such a tool path, then (aside from the massive number of machine hours) there is little reason why such a file could not be cut.
But...
That type of relief work may not even be suitable for your application. To get the detail, you either need the job to be massive (ie look at it from a distance, and produce it on a machine larger than anyone has knocking about!), or you would need a very fine cut.
If you have a fine cut, and leave it outside for years and years, corrosion, vandalism, etc.etc. would do for it anyhow.
There is no perfect solution - its a case of deciding which compromises work with your end goal the best.
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no mate, what you did was great. im just trying to work out how to get them inside the car?
its waayyyyy beyond my grasp mate, so please "bear" with my ignorance.
thanks guys...
If the degree of detail in my proof is acceptable, I can do the car in the same way and place the two figures inside, but depending on the overall size of the plaque, you might find that they're reduced to such a size that they're rather lost.
Despite the result looking rather simple, it takes quite a while to do ... you need to mucking around with the photo adjusting quite a few parameters to try and get as much contrast as possible before changing to B&W and then to converting to vectors. I'm more than willing to do it, but only if it's something you'll be happy with and use.
Let me know.
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i understand the time. took me bloody ages last night.
allow me to go back to the family and give them the news.
gimme a day or so please mate.
ged
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Ged, is this still a going concern? I've got quite a few files on my desktop I'd like to delete if they're not needed.
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it is, but delete away mate. and cheers ;)