Braided Hose?

[cadet]

Can someone suggest how to apply a braided look to a solid? I’ve drawn a curved solid representing a hose and need to look braided. I’ve experimented a bit with the materials offered in AutoCAD 2004, but nothing seems to come close. Are materials the way to do it, or can I apply some sort of 3d hatch? If I do it by applying a material, do I need to learn how to create my own or do you know of one the represents braided stainless?

http://tasker.us/braided_hose.jpg

[CADTutor]

It has to be said that AutoCAD is probably not the best tool to use for photoreal rendering. Materials are particularly limited. I think the best chance you have of coming close to what you want is to create your own material using a bitmap. See the Custom Bitmap Materials tutorial (http://www.cadtutor.net/acad/acad2ki/bitmat/bitmat.html) for a walkthrough on this.

[hendie]

yes materials are the way to achieve it.
First you have to apply the material you wish ~ acad materiasl are pretty rubbish so you may want to use your own bitmap or jpg or whatever.
Once you have applied the material you have to appply mapping ~ this is the important part. It is the mapping which make "lays" the material onto the object in the direction you want.
you have to mess about adjusting the mapping and bitmap size until you are satisfied. very time consuming

[cadet]

CADTutor & hendie

Thank you for the assistance. I followed your suggestions and drew the hatch in AutoCAD, then printed to an eps file, then used Photoshop to save as a bmp file, put the file in a logical location, created a new material based on the bmp file, played around a bit with the scale and transparency… and seemed to achieve acceptable results.

I now have a new problem. Most of my drawings are printed from paper space. The model is underneath with text and title block on top in paper space. Apparently, I can’t render the paper space.

Any ideas on ways to combine the rendered image with paper space? The method I used is to print the paper space to an eps file and then combine it with the rendered image in Photoshop, but that method is clunky and labor intensive.


http://tasker.us/braided_render.jpg

[hendie]

you'll have to render to a file and then insert the file into autocad.

[f700es]

I thought that was one of the improvements inr2004/2005? The ability to render in paper space.

[hendie]

I'm not sure, I'm still on 2000 and I never render in Autocad if I can help it.
isn't it the ability to print shaded drawings ? I'm not sure about rendering, perhaps someone can verify.

[CADTutor]

Well, since you are using AutoCAD 2004, you can actually render the viewport and then print it from paperspace. Hendie's advice is true for versions of AutoCAD before 2004.

Naturally, you'll need to be in floating model space when you do the render. Alternately, you can select a Shadeplot option for each viewport from the Properties Panel.