gallery scene, image fill problem with aligning in frame

[William Haas]

I am new to vectorworks and have a problem with image fills slipping out of alignment when viewed from an angle. I am trying to fill picture frames in a gallery and can align the image to the inserted 2d square when looking at the frame straight on. When I switch the view to an isometric view, the image no longer lines up with the filled square. Is there some obvious solution to this?

Thanks in advance

[taoist]

William,

Here are (2) videos you can watch.

Hope they help.

http://kbase.vectorworks.net/questions/850/Mapping+Images+to+Planar+Surfaces

http://kbase.vectorworks.net/questions/1013/Creating+a+3D+Painting

[bcd]

try rendering the same scene in Open GL or Fast Renderworks to see a difference.

[William Haas]

If I take a point of view looking down at the gallery the images slip down in the frame where I can look over the top of the image. If i take a point of view looking up from the floor the mapped image in the frame slips up and I can look under the image. It only stays mapped correctly when I set a camera looking at the mapped image straight on eye level with picture center line. Rendering with renderworks or open GL does not fix this aberration.

[William Haas]

Thanks for the links! The 3d painting tutorial is the ticket. Seems to do exactly what I was trying to do. I saw the previous video about importing the image through the resource browser and that is what was giving me all the problems with alignment. It does not seem to work for me as intended. Thanks again.

[William Haas]

A follow-up to my previous gallery of paintings problem is that I am now having problems with bitmap images not rendering all the time. Seems to be a consistent problem when a framed picture is made into a symbol which results in only the frame rendering in a final renderworks command (shows in open GL and wire-frame)When not turned into a symbol it works more often but not all the time,renders are not predictably successful from camera views, sometimes renders sometimes not. I am using jpeg images of various file sizes. My computer is an asus laptop U46E i7 processor and an intel graphics card. Any insights to success would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Monadnoc]

My first guess would be memory issues. What sizes are the jpgs you are using (in pixels) and how many are there?

[William Haas]

They range in size since I am experimenting, from 470x640 to 2000x1700. I have not put more than 5 pictures up but have seen the problem with as few a 1 picture in regards to being turned into a symbol and not rendering the bitmap, only the frame. I forgot to mention I have 8 gigs of ram.

Edited June 11, 2012 by William Haas

[Monadnoc]

Well, that certainly doesn't sound out of line in terms of size and quantity.

Can you post the file? Maybe someone will be able to spot the problem, if there is one.

Edited June 11, 2012 by Monadnoc

[William Haas]

I am new to this list and unfamiliar with posting a file. Can you give me a little instruction on this or point me to a link that does so. Thanks!

[William Haas]

These 2 videos were already posted to me in this thread which were helpful but does not answer the current dilemma about rendering bitmaps failing within a symbol and in straight on views. I have an example of the files that is not working if there is a way to post thus as Monadnoc suggested and I could possibly get some feedback, that would be great. Its a simple file and if it works for some one else then I know its my system. Though I experience the same thing on my desktop which is a pc dual core with a decent nvidia card.

[Monadnoc]

To post a file, hit the "Switch To Full Screen Reply" button, then the File Manager link at the bottom.

Edited June 11, 2012 by Monadnoc

[William Haas]

I am experiencing trouble with the upload. I have compressed the file from 5mb to 820kb and get a failure to upload message, from the tech.board site that it has failed to upload by a certain period of time. I will try again later. Do you know if this happens often or is it because I may have a slow upload moment on my DSL? Thanks for your help.

Regards,

Bill

Edited June 11, 2012 by William Haas

[William Haas]

I have attached the image gallery file that is giving me the bitmap rendering problems. There are 2 sets of duplicate pictures. The first of each set is a symbol of the following picture(s). For me the symbol picture fails to render anything but the frame except for at an elevated isometric view. None of the bitmaped images render in front view, just frames. In a skewed viewpoint, again the symbol bitmap images do not render, only frames. The grouped bitmap/frame images do render skewed most of the time but not always the first render attempt. Any insights to this would be greatly apreciated.

Thanks,

Bill

[John Meunier]

I wouldn't use bitmaps as the pictures image. Create a texture from each image and then apply that texture to a object. You wont have any problems rendering the attached file as the images are textures applied to an object.

Cheers!

[taoist]

Bitmap files are huge compared to jpeg.

jpeg is smaller than png as well

[William Haas]

I miss-spoke, the file was compressed as a jpg but vectorworks info pallet labels it as a bitmap. I have done the texture alternative to apply an image but am new to vectorworks and am going with the recommended and easiest processes for how to integrate images into this 3d environment. I am just interested in taking the route that provides the most reliable results. Anyone who uses images and applies them to a 3d environment that has found the most reliable route to achieving that I would be quite pleased to hear what that is. This seems like a fundemental goal that should be sort of clear cut.

Thanks,

William Haas

[Monadnoc]

Glad John figured it out.

I have VW 2011 so I couldn't open your file, but it sounds like you were using 2D bitmap images applied to 2D planer objects. I wouldn't recommend that either. Using 3D polygons with the images applied as textures is the way to go. As far as jpg vs png vs straight bmp, jpg compresses the smallest, but they are all the same size once in your file and used in a scene. But jpg is a "lossy" algorithm, which means each time you open it the quality will get a little worse. It usually is not that noticeable or that big an issue. But I would use png or tif myself. Tif being the highest quality, all things being equal.

[Monadnoc]

I think that VW turns any bitmap based image format into a bmp when it turns it into an Image resource. But I'm just going by memory, I haven't checked it out. But like I said, a pixel is a pixel, whatever size (in pixels) your image is, is how much memory it will use, when uncompressed (in other words, inserted/used in your scene, and with your file open).

Actually, I just checked, and VW is simply listing the jpg or png (your only two choices on import) as a Bitmap. Which it is. All jpg, png, bmp, (some) pdf, gif, targa, tif, psd, etc. file formats are bitmaps. In fact, at the bottom it tells you whether it's 24 or 32 bit, it's size in pixels, and whether it's a png or jpg.

Edited June 11, 2012 by Monadnoc

[William Haas]

I liked the idea of a symbol since it would be easy to keep a library of gallery/framed images that could be applied to walls as need be without overtaxing or bloating the vwx file, but that is a problem if it does not seem to work for people as described. Does this list serve provide any ability to pole people on their experience with what solution for image gallery procedure is most preferred?

I have uploaded a 2009 version of the test file. I could not get the images to show at all in version 2012 after saving back to 09.

Thanks

Edited June 11, 2012 by William Haas

[Monadnoc]

I just viewed the two videos that were posted at the beginning of this thread, and it looks like neither one uses a 3D texture applied to a 3D polygon. But that is the way I would do it. Based on your experience, it looks like the Planer bitmap object isn't quite as stable as they would have you believe.

Another option is to import/create the paintings as Image Props, which would then list them in the Resource Browser, and be easy to resize. I find Image Props pretty stable. They have been around for a while. They are 3D textures, just a lot of the work is done for you upon creation, and they are easier to manage. I think that's how I would go.

Model > Create Image Prop >Import an Image File (unless it's already in your file), then (for a painting):

Enter the desired size/dimensions

Don't use a mask

Don't use cross planes

Don't use Constant Reflectivity

DO USE Create Plugin

Don't use Auto Rotate To Viewer

DO USE Create Symbol (but only if you need it listed in the RB for easy reuse)

Edited June 11, 2012 by Monadnoc

[William Haas]

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

[Monadnoc]

You still may need to combine it (the Image Prop) with a frame EAP into a single symbol for reuse in other files. But that's OK, you can have nested symbols.

[Monadnoc]

I just looked at your 2009 file and all the images for the painting are missing from the symbols. I don't think VW2009 supported Planar Objects, which would make sense then that they were stripped out. It is also another reason to go the 3D poly/texture route vs the Image in Planar mode route. If you think you'll ever need to save it down to an earlier version than VW2011.

I also notice you are using 1:1 scale for the Design Layer. I find that really isn't a good idea in VW. That may be what is causing your problems. I always set my Design Layer scale to a real world scale, like 1/4" = 1', etc. That's how VW/MiniCAD was originally designed to be used. It not only behaves better, but makes more sense from a drafting point of view. It still is being created at 1:1, it just displays and fits on the page automatically. Let the computer do the converting, I say. 1:1 is kind of an AutoCAD quirk (well, and others, but I think they started it). As an aside, AutoDESK has downplayed the idea of working in 1:1 for the last several releases. I don't think I've seen a webinar from them in the last five years or so that didn't do everything on a Layout Tab (paper space) set to a real scale like 1/4" = 1', with a real page size (ARCH D, etc). You just work "through" the viewport, so you are actually in model space at 1:1, but you would never know it. AC has adopted many of the features and way of thinking of VW in the last ten years. Working in 1:1 is very "old school", even in the AutoCAD world.

If you change to a reasonable scale for your page size, your original planar bitmaps might work fine.

Edited June 12, 2012 by Monadnoc

[William Haas]

Thanks for the tip. I'll give that a try also.

Much appreciated!

Bill