Drawing own car blueprints?

[kshawkeye]

I have a model of a car that I am very interested to make in 3dsmax. I own the Adobe Master Collection CS4 so I have all the tools to trace the images. I really would like to get a set of blueprints that look something close to the normal ones you see, any ideas? I know I would need to take images of each side, but I'm worried that those images wont be accurate enough, how are these types of blueprints even made? Whats my first step?

[SDA]

First of all. Your first step will be to make a vector image out of raster image.

The vector image contains the shape of a car from front, back, left and right. The shape you can edit in max for instance like a line, but first you will need a program that will transform, or make shapes from a sketch or a blueprint. You can use adobe Illustrator to trace the image but I find this program to be inaccurate for for some reason, but it might be my lack of knowledge how to use this program. I recently found and I am still using the Vector magic to create shapes for my projects.

These blueprints are made in vector graphics, and then they are turned in to .jpg format that has no shapes, and then they loose details. Now, to make shapes form .jpg is like making a pie from flour, meaning you lose many details trying to restore or revert the operation done on the vector blueprint. My advice is to buy the blueprint of the car, and then you wont miss any details. Or if you don't want to buy blueprint, you can always try to get as higher resolution on a image as you can.

P.S. Before you do anything with your image, try to make as higher contrast as you can (because most of blueprints are black and white) and then any program will easily trace the shapes that you need. The rest you know, you can import .ai in to max or you can export .fbx and then import it to max. The rest is just a matter of details, witch you can see in a reference images of the car. These images are also important and you should get them also in higher resolution, you can find them on the net, just to see the details.

Cheers ;)

[kshawkeye]

Is there a way to trace the body lines of a car off of images I took of the model car? I'm just kinda getting hung up on how to take the pictures of the car accurately. I can line the camera up with the front, back, top, and left of the car, but if the camera isn't pretty much perfectly places on all the side, the final blueprints, or vector images (I haven't decided which I will trace yet) can be greatly off. I have seen several vector images out there, which are just traced blueprints, but if it's at all possible I want to be able to make these vector images myself. I mean someone somewhere had to do it for the blueprints that are available online right now, so there must be a proven way.

I am slightly confused on the advantages of using vector images, other than the fact that they are higher resolution and are said to be more accurate.

[SDA]

If you are referring on tracing images taken with a camera of a car in real time, you should know that software that you are using is trying to find the edges, meaning he is trying to find two colors that are different or have some contrast. So... If you want to do this you should edit image before tracing it.

Don't be confused by vector images, they are just an images with shapes on them, like in Photoshop. Images made in vector don't have resolution like raster images. They are just shapes on a paper and you actually cant compare these two. That's the difference between raster and vector, the vector you can edit and add details, and raster you can only paint. You can see this image to see the difference. Other than that both version of images are vary much different than the other. For example, vector image is very small compared to picture.

Cheers

[SDA]

Take a look at this video. It will help you decide what to do.

[kshawkeye]

Gotcha, so its somewhat like a PDF file, they don't actually save the images as images, more as shapes. Anyway, whats a good way to take the picture of each side of the car? How much can a small angle effect my final vector blueprints?

[SDA]

I have never tried to do that. But I know few people who did it. The angle will affect your vector shape, according to formula. Its a small percentage, but it could go up to 24%. It really depends how good are you with your camera, and your general perception in space.

If 'A' is alpha angle that differs from your 90 degrees (that means its an small distortion or imperfection of your perception of a normal angle, witch is 90) then I will write you the formula according to percentage of your distortion. That angle usually goes from 2-14 degree, it's hard to make angel less than 2 but some have done it. And the formula is roughly something like: sin (A) * 100 = [%] of angle distortion. An example would be 1 degree and sin of that would be ~0.017452.... and times 100 it would be 1.7452% of distortion, witch is practically nothing. So what you need to do if you know your fault angle is to calculate this and stretch the image (works almost the same in both ways x and y) for that percentage before making an vector image. That means if your A is greater the side of a car will be more narrow.

And the best way to take accurate pictures is to get tripod if you don't have one, this way you wont get blurry images, meaning your vector shapes will be more accurate. And if you can, you can draw with a chalk a isosceles triangle on a asphalt and make a height of triangle to be your distance from a car. Each of wide (equal) angles draw below each end of car. It's best to use measuring tape here to be accurate. On the other hand if you take pictures in a car show you can measure by steps and don't use chalk, try to remember the spot where you measured or leave a bag from a camera or something.

P.S. You havent told me what car are you tiring to make?
Cheers ;)

[kshawkeye]

Wow, that was an extremely helpful answer, thank you!

I'm modeling a Lamborghini Reventon.

I figure the sides, front, and back will be easy to take pictures of, but I'm worried about the top. Should I lay the car model on its side and try to make it straight 90 degrees up? Or somehow hang the camera down on a 90 degree angle and attempt to take a picture?

Do you happen to know how blueprints that can be found on the web are made (such as BMW and Audi's)?

When tracing my image, does it matter what "thickness" the line is? (I'm not sure if that is the right term, simply because I haven't worked with illustrator much yet and I know from Photoshop the lines have a pixel size). I don't just mean the thickness of the whole car, but if you look at standard blueprints the outer line that defines the outside shape of the car is maybe a 4px, inside overlapping parts are maybe a 3px, cracks and seams between car parts are maybe 2px, and body lines and small creases are maybe a 1px. I'm just wondering if this same rule applies for vector images, do I need to define the thickness of the pen tool in order to match the corresponding part?

I've included a few images of the car I hope to end up with, the screen shots are taken from a custom Reventon I have made in Froza 3, and I would like to remake the same car (but better detail) in Max to do a very good high quality render for my wallpaper.

Thanks very much for your help!

[SDA]

Unfortunately I don't know how the blueprints are made, and how shapes are deployed, but I do know they are made of shapes, most probably without fill, the lines and all that.

About making the picture from the top. If you are picturing a model of a car you can stick a model to a wall (or some other vertical thing, possibly if its a wall to be in same color, commonly used green) and then align the camera 90 degrees and take pictures. But if you have a real car that you want to take pictures of, try taking pictures from a bridge, down at the car. Of course secure the camera and your self before, and measure just like I told you earlier. But now you will have to approximate 4 equal sides of pyramid, in witch the height of the pyramid is camera distance from a car, and the base would be on the half of the car height. This might be much more difficult than the sides. Back at the sides you would adjust just the height of you camera and take photos of a model by just rotating it or rotating your self around it.

And about making vector images. My current experience with tracing tells me that a line 1-2 pixel wide is traced like a line (you can also adjust this settings, but I suggest you leave it on default because if you trace a line for a 3 or more pixels you wont get accurate results). My guess you would like to use 16 color trace and technical drawing trace. The first one makes shapes witch are divided in to colors and the second one is the best if you have technical blueprint in .jpg or .bmp... Also with the threshold you can adjust the number of anchor-points that you have in your shapes.

I have worked with shapes today, nothing special. I was working for a guy some maps and stuff and it proves that your own hand is actually much much more precise than a live trace because you can add details where you want, and how you want. The never ending battle between automated vs. hand drawing. So to sum it all, its better to work with your hand/mouse/pen than to leave your work of art to be done by a computer. I have finished this map outline (for this guy) for a less than 5 minutes and I kept the important details of the map.

So you will have to see what works best for you. These where my advices. If you have any other questions, please do ask them.

P.S. By the way, if you didn't know, I work with vectors allot on my college, 2nd year of mechanics. That is how I know allot about them, and I know math really good ;)

And here in attachments you will find a test of tracing that I've done. 1st the original picture, 2nd the 16 color trace and 3rd the sketch/blueprint/technical drawing trace.
Have a nice test, and tell me the results.

Cheers