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Using image fills for elevations (particularly bricks)


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When we produce elevations at Planning Design stage historically we've tended to represent brick walls by using a horizontal hatch and colour fill background. This has served us reasonably well but, for various reasons, we'd like to experiment with image fills.

First of all, image fills are obviously going to give our elevations a very different quality and we'd like to use them as subtly as possible (rather than going for realism). So I'm after some good examples of elevations where image fills (or textures) have been used to subtly represent brick. Does anyone know where I might find such examples? I remember seeing some examples where a viewport layering method had also been employed.

Secondly, there are some brick image fills that come with Vectorworks but these are quite limited. Where can we find a good supply? Ideally we'd like to find somebody we can periodically purchase professionally made textures to match bricks available in the UK.

Edited by Christiaan
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Christiaan,

I usually make my own brick textures by taking a high res picture of several brick (white or black backround) and make my own colored mortar than assemble the picts in photoshop or corel draw creating a seamless texture. Works good and looks realistic. I also make a bump map of the assembly to add depth for presentation.

If you can get your hands on some good (no shadows) picts I can make up textures for you.

PA

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Thanks panthony. I slipped one past you here though. It's actually image fills we're after as opposed to textures, as we're working in 2D to produce our elevations. Is it a similar process to create an image fill?

Are there instructions for creating these anywhere?

By the way, IBStock Bricks in the UK have said they will supply me with high resolution images of their bricks (it's going to take them 10 days for whatever reason).

Is there anything else I should ask them for? Presumably the more real bricks in one photo the better?

Edited by Christiaan
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Christiaan,

You can use the EuroBuffBrick.jpg file as an image fill. Just create a new resource importing the jpg file into the images category. VW will convert it properly as an image fill and you can then use it on 2D shapes as a fill. Prints to greyscale in black and white or color with an appropriate printer.

Ask them for mortar color images...the mortar I created was from scratch in corel...looks ok but not accurate to manufacturer specs.

PA

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Just a note:

I usually will isolate a single brick for any seamless image or texture. If you have brick images that vary widely in color I will assemble cropped individual bricks into the overall image spacing them appropriatly for the insertion of the mortar joints. This way I can get a good seamless texture (image). If there is alot of color variation with different bricks it lowers the seamless characteristics of the texture over large areas as you begin to pick up the pattern. In the case of varying colors or textures I will build a larger image to include a greater varity of colors and textures to limit patterning. Takes longer to build the texture but looks better on the model (2D or 3D).

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  • 4 weeks later...
Ask them for mortar color images.

What form would one ideally want to receive these in Panthony? Are you just suggesting I ask them for images with mortar included? Or are you saying I should ask for images with various mortar colours?

Here's the latest message I've received from IBStock bricks:

I have now copied all our bricks in to the largest file size we have. However I fear this isn?t exactly what you are after. A higher resolution doesn?t necessarily mean a greater area of brickwork.

Please can you advise me exactly what you require the brick images for and the file size you require for a particular image.

Any advice on responding? Do we want as higher resolution as possible? If not, what resolution? It would be good If I could point them to a how-to on the process they will go through when being made into textures and fills.

Obviously the more bricks we have the more one has to choose from but from your statements so far this doesn't seem as important as I thought it was.

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Christiaan,

Creating the mortar colors is quite easy in Corel or Photoshop and I like to have a guide from the brick company. I have in the past just used the small mortar colors sample sticks provided by the brick supplier as a guide in recreating the same as a graphic texture. Mortars can vary widely in color due in part to the sand aggregate and colored portland cement. Most brick manufacturers have samples with specific mixtures providing clients with an array of standard samples that compliment thier brick.

The higher resolution a picture you have the more realistic of a texture you can create. This plays an important role in large wall surfaces not showing a pattern such as was seen in the quick sample I made earlier. Plus...in order to find the best seamless graphic you need to choose sometimes a very small area of large photo so the larger the photo the better opportunity to find an area that will give good results.

I prefer images that are somewhere between 480 and 800 pixels at no less than 96 pixels per unit. You can tell the brick folks that you are trying to create seamless textures with the hi-res graphic images

The larger the library of textures you have the more options you have in presentation possibilities.

Regards,

pa

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  • 2 months later...

in my new version of handrafted symbols a whole new range of bricks will be added: just take a look at these 2 images (screenshots) made from a project: an elevation of a street were

the new appartment complex will be build.

all symbols are for elevation.

enjoy everbody

ps: what is VW great he!

Edited by ownerdude
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