Christiaan Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 (edited) 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 January 22, 2009 by Christiaan Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Dave Donley Posted January 22, 2009 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted January 22, 2009 An oldie but goodie: http://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=77074#Post77074 Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted January 22, 2009 Author Share Posted January 22, 2009 I couldn't find any bricks on their site David, let alone bricks relating to the UK market. Quote Link to comment
panthony Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 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 Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted January 23, 2009 Author Share Posted January 23, 2009 That's very kind of you to offer, thanks. I'll see what we can come up with. Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted January 23, 2009 Author Share Posted January 23, 2009 Here's one brick we're after: http://www.ibstock.uk.com/products-stuart-buff.asp I don't suppose this image has a high enough res: http://www.ibstock.uk.com/images/brick_shots/2738.jpg Quote Link to comment
panthony Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 Christiaan, Below are file attachements showing the brick you provided above. And yes the resolution could be higher but the results are ok with what you provided. Takes about an hour to make a decent texture. PA Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted January 26, 2009 Author Share Posted January 26, 2009 (edited) 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 January 26, 2009 by Christiaan Quote Link to comment
panthony Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 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 Quote Link to comment
panthony Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 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). Quote Link to comment
Stan Rostas Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 Hanson Brick This might have Textures and Images you can use. They are US and Canadian but might have something close to what you need. Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted February 23, 2009 Author Share Posted February 23, 2009 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. Quote Link to comment
panthony Posted February 24, 2009 Share Posted February 24, 2009 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 Quote Link to comment
iSymbol-franklin Posted May 8, 2009 Share Posted May 8, 2009 (edited) 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 May 8, 2009 by ownerdude Quote Link to comment
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