Hi Michael,

Thanks for your first class feedback and assistance !

In the meantime, I was able to get by pretty much as you suggested. The remaining issue is not so much orientation of the background images as their relative scales. I often have to use single drawings from planes or ships that show several different angles of view, for example profiles and sections. Using Photoshop and the like, I can separate the various views, but I usually have to spend a lot of time adjusting the different views so that they match.

I mean, assuming that I disregard scale entirely, I lay out the first view in MoI, but then it is a struggle fiddling with the other views so that they are properly oriented and at the same scale. I though it wise to use the same original drawing (i.e. including itels relvant to several views) in all three orientations, lay it out three times in the same plane using snap of the first instance and then orienting two of them in the other directions (hence the need to orient them precisely) and use only the part of each drawing relevant to that view, but it proved very confusing. Using a rectangle or a cube I can more or less orient the drawings (the often get inverted, right coming out as left etc., and it is still very much a trial and error process.

And on top of that, most of the time, I find out that the original drawings do not match by a huge margin and that they need considerable doctoring! That is definitely not a MoI issue, though.

I need to try all that once more. I may have a mental block preventing me of doing what I want in a simple and easy way as everybody else seems to be able to do…

Hi JPB, yeah if the original images do not match then that is going to get in the way quite a bit!

You'll probably want to prepare the images to have the same aspect ratio (proportion of width to height) also, since MoI will maintain the aspect ratio of an image and won't squish it non-proportionally.

Also it is not quite clear to me what you are trying to do with the scale - is there a legend or reference line in these images that you can use to set the scale? If so then MoI does not have anyway to automatically recognize that (that would take some kind of artifical intelligence to try and process the image pixel dots as something other than just a bunch of colored dots), but you can use the Align tool in the MoI v2 beta to set the scale of such a reference line pretty easily.

Here is a demo of how that works - you pick 2 reference points in the image and then you you pick 2 reference points in your model and the image is scaled and placed so that those registration lines will align with one another:



If you use a horizontal line it won't adjust the rotation.

Normally once you place one image, it should be pretty easy to match another one to it exactly from another view by looking for the "end" snaps (but making a box that is easily viewable from all directions is not a bad idea...).

The way that works is first in your top view place the initial image, get it to the proper scale and position that you want everything else to be aligned to, that will look something like this:



Now if I switch to the Front view and draw a new image there, I can pick up the 2 end points snaps to give it a precise alignment, like this:



When you go to move an image, start your drag a little bit to the inside of the corner so that you don't scale it instead - the scale grip will highlight if you are close to it so move a little away from that if you want to move it rather than scale.

If you want images at a 90 degree aspect to one another, you'll likely be better off drawing them like I show above so that they already are 90 degrees to each other right from the start and just totally avoid the rotation tri-ball thing completely. Also if you're having problems knowing where those end snaps are, you can just draw an imprecise one in the view to start with and then once it is placed at that 90 degree angle to the other one it should be pretty easy to switch to the 3d view for moving it and also scaling it to match the other image - I show moving it in the above screencap but scaling is easy to do in there as well once it is already at the rotation that you want.

Getting the images initially placed at 90 degrees will probably help make things quite a bit easier.



> (the often get inverted, right coming out as left etc.

That kind of thing can happen if you grab a scale corner and then drag it over past the opposite edge of the image, the image will become mirrored with that kind of dragging.


But if your images do not have a proper alignment to them like if they are different aspect ratios, then that's going to be a big problem that you'll want to adjust before bringing them into MoI.


Again, it is hard to for me to exactly understand what you are running into without actually seeing some stuff rather than just trying to imagine from descriptions. If you could include just a couple of the images and possibly show one kind of arrangement that you want to place them in (even with just an approximate sketch or something), that would be a lot easier for me to give you some more specific tips for that...

But I hope this much helps anyway though!

- Michael

Also here is a demo of how to align 2 images with one another when the second one has just been initially placed quickly in the Front or Right-side view:




One key thing to notice there is that I grab the upper-right scale corner, and not the lower-right one.

That's because the anchor point is mostly what you want to control there - if you look closely when I move the mouse over the grip, you can see this anchor icon that shows where the fixed point for the scale is at:



The anchor for the scale will be the opposite diagonal corner, so the grip that is diagonally opposite of the point you want to stay fixed is the one that you want to drag, not necessarily the one that is actually closest to your final destination point... That may be a little trick that was getting in your way.

In v2 you can also click and release on one of those corner grips to switch the anchor from corner to the center of the image. So if you see it go to the center, it means you did a click and release on the grip, and do another click on it to flip it back to corner mode again.

- Michael

I had thought of this sort of rotation ;)
Easy to draw it at the Loading on the inclined face
Image rotate from plan to any angle but it is not visible from the "Right" side !
Align don't work from plan to inclined face

Hi Pilou,

> I had thinking of this sort of rotation ;)

I think that's probably not the kind of alignment that JPB is talking about, although hard to say without seeing any actual sketches or illustrations of the original question.

But if you want to do what you show there, just snap the points on to that plane when you initially place the image and you're done, here is an example:



You can also set the cplane as another way to control how the image will be placed when you draw it.

- Michael

Hi Pilou - I see now you mean rotate from an odd angle down to the plane?

For that I would just recommend drawing a brand new image flat on the plane and delete the old angled one, that is a simple way to get that result.

Maybe in the future I can get the tri-ball rotation to handle that case, but that will be overall more complicated, why not just use the simple way that already works?

- Michael

yes when you draw first that easy but seems impossible if image is yet existing ;)
Edit Cross posts :)
Yes you right why not use existing easy thing :) It's not me who asked a rotation at the first post :)

Hi Pilou,

> yes when you draw first that easy but seems
> impossible if image is yet existing ;)

Yeah it won't work to modify the existing image, but it's not impossible to get the final result you want. Just delete the existing one and draw a new one and you will have it...

Does that do the job you want there? If so then I'm not sure if there is really a problem that needs to be solved.

- Michael

Problem is as you can move and rotate yet in 3D view on the existing plan you want have the other rotation so frustration :)

Frenchy's picture will work as he asked. In the draw box he must choose "With Objects". Then you can grab that image that is flat on the ground and move it up to the top corner of his object (3d view) then use the roatte widget to rotate it down to match the angle.

Hi Pilou,

> Problem is as you can move and rotate yet in 3D view
> on the existing plan you want have the other rotation so frustration :)

Solution to frustration: Delete the image and draw a new one flat on the plane. You get the result you want, it only takes a few seconds, so frustration is ended quickly! :)

Why stay frustrated when there is an easy method to get what you need?

- Michael

@ Burr Seems not ;)


@ Michael
I am agree with you for how obtain the same result ;)
It's just that seems a "natural missing"

Hi Pilou,

> It's just that seems a "natural missing"

It's not really a big problem area to solve, since background images are not really altered in fine degrees like that from their initial placement in their typical usage.

It would be nice to have it in the future, but since there is a very simple existing solution it just isn't a high priority compared to other things...

- Michael

Of course! :)

Hi Michael,

OK, I get it now ! As I thought, it was just a case of my getting into a mental block. I have a tendency to over engineer things. Simple tricks do not always come to me right away.

Thanks for your time on this. It is much appreciated.

Jean-Paul

No problem Jean-Paul, I'm glad that it makes sense now!

- Michael

program that is used to create these animations in gif's

Hi thaisregina, I use Camtasia Studio to create those animated GIFs from screen captures: http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/

- Michael

Hi

Michael Gibson THANK YOU!

My congratulations and MoI is wonderful
I'm taking the first steps with the tutorials that
found here hope this will be easier to model
Organic modeling and curtains in sketchup