Applying a wood grain to a 3D form - Autocad 2000

[schuhfly18]

Hello - I am new here and have been looking at posts the past few days trying to find an answer to my problem... so far I only have been finding more information, but no solution. Here is what I am trying to do:

 

I am using a very old version of autocad - the 2000 edition, on a very old computer. I work part time for a company putting simple 2D profiles (profiles of crown moulding, wood work decor) on their website. This is something I have done for years - all the features that I use are ones I am familiar with, just drawing lines, arcs, adding dimensions, etc. Now they would like to update their website and put on drawings that are in 3D. I can take the profiles I made in 2D and put them into 3D by joining them and then extruding them. (If this is not the best way to do this please correct me.)

 

I understand how to make it either a flat shaded or wireframe shape - and the gouraud shaded image is actually the closest to what I am trying to achieve. From there however they would like the profile to be finished in a wood grain texture. This is where I get stuck. I have limited experience with Autocad (only what I learned years ago in highschool & what I have done for them in the past - most of which has all be in 2D work). From messing around and trying to figure it out the last two days I have found the hatch & the render commands.

 

Hatch sounds like it is much easier to use but there is no wood grain hatch pattern available in (my version at least) of Autocad. Render has the wood grain patters that I can see in the materials list that would be perfect to use, however I do not know how to use the render command. Which command would be best to solve this?

 

When trying to use either hatch or render I can open up the boxes, select what I would like to happen - but then nothing changes on my image, it is still the same as it was before I chose the command.

 

I appreciate any help I can get on this. Uploading pictures is a bit of a pain for me as the computer I am using is quite old and is actually not on the internet anymore (just a desktop that I solely use for this part time job). I do have Illustrator & Photoshop available to use as well if there is a different, easier way to do this involving those programs. In the end if I can figure this out I will be creating many, many different profiles in this manner so a solution that requires the least amount of monkeying around would be the best, but at this point anything would be a start!

 

Thanks!

[ReMark]

If you were working with flat surfaces you might get away with applying a hatch to a face but mouldings are rarely flat. Therefore I suggest you either assign a material (wood grain) to the layer your moulding is on or attach the material to the object itself. You'll need to light the scene before rendering it.

 

Old computer and old software? Sounds like a recipe for frustration. Have you brought AutoCAD created objects into Illustrator and/or Photoshop in the past? Maybe you would be better off "rendering" them in a program other than AutoCAD.

[schuhfly18]

Thanks for the quick response!

 

You are correct when you say that not all the sides would be flat - the front face is, but the top shows the intricate design of the profile itself so it is full of arcs and dips.

 

How would I assign a material/wood grain to the layer? I know very basic stuff about the layers as it is not something that I usually have to use to do the simple line drawing I need to do, but something I have used in the past.

 

And when you say "attaching the material to the object itself" would that be considered rendering it, or would that be something else?

 

I have brought Autocad created profiles into Illustrator before - but not to do this type of work. I use Illustrator to place the profile on the companys watermark and then size the files to be placed online. In this instance I think it would be easier to do the work in Autocad if it were possible as I think it would be more steps and more work in one of the other programs (but that is an option).

 

Sorry if these seem like really simple questions! This is not something I have ever played around with when trying things out on my own.

[ReMark]

Attaching a material to an object is not considered rendering it. Rendering is a process that normally would take place after materials have been attached and lights placed.

[Cad64]

You might want to take a look at this: http://www.cadtutor.net/tutorials/autocad/bitmap-materials.php

[schuhfly18]

Okay... So I have gone into the view -> render -> light command and have (I think) placed a light source. I've never done this outside of trying it for this use, but when I assign it a name "A" I can then see what appears to be a "sun" type shape with the letter "A" in it so I think I have gotten that far. I also went to view -> render -> Materials command and I selected the wood grain that I wanted from the materials library and Imported it into the list. I tried to attach the wood grain to the profile but had trouble selecting the profile after hitting attach. When I highlighted the wood grain as my material and hit select - then when the box pops back up it says on the bottom: "Wood - Med. ASH is attached explicitly to the object". So I believe I have successfully attached the wood grain. Then I go to view -> render -> render and the box for that pops up. Here I do not know what settings to try. I can get it to change in the render window but from here I can only save it as a BMP and with very limited options for where to save it to. I would really like to be able to save this as a normal Autocad .dwg document. Is that not possible? It still will not change on my normal work screen.

 

Thanks again - this is really starting to get to me as I have been trying to do one (seemingly simple) task for the past two days and for whatever reason I just cannot make it happen! The closest I have come is when I hit render after trying some of the above steps and it changed the color to more of a white, and changed the the appearance of the top edge a bit (making me feel like I'm getting close but still missing some very important piece to this).

[ReMark]

You cannot save it as a dwg file. Try saving it as a TIFF file.

Edited December 11, 2010 by ReMark

[Cad64]

Since you're using such an old version of the program, it's going to be difficult to walk you through the processes and procedures. The Autocad 3D environment has changed so much over the last few years that it is now completely different from what you are using, and I think most of us have forgotten the old ways of doing things. But there are a few guys around here that still use the old versions, (David Bethel is one that springs to mind), so maybe one of them will pop in here with some advice. I have renamed your thread in order to draw attention to the fact that you're using Autocad 2000.

 

I would recommend that you find a book on 3D modeling and rendering in Autocad 2000. I just checked Amazon.com and there are a few books available. You might want to invest in one.

[schuhfly18]

I got it to work! You guys are awesome! I got the rendered version to show up - now I just need to figure out how I will be able to save it and transfer it so I can do he next few steps in the process! lol....

[ReMark]

How to save it? Isn't there a File option in the upper left-hand corner of the Render window?

[David Bethel]

The builtin rendering app in Autocad 2000 was really a weak application. I would not spend a lot of time with it. But if you have to, then the rendering menu has all the tools that you will need. You will need a lot of patience in applying materials and orienting them ( setuv ) in the correct plane. ( see how the middle piece is a cross section ). Accurender ( 2.0 or 3.1 ) was one of the better 3rd party addons that worked easily with autocad. There are a lot of stand alone rendering packages that can deal with dwg or dxf files.

 

Use the SAVEIMG command to save the image as a raster file.

 

DVIEW is going to be a friend as well. I use a autolisp program ( PXT.LSP ) for extruding meshes. Again 2000 wasn't much of a 3D modeler either.

 

-David

[schuhfly18]

There is a save file option but it only gives me very limited options as to what type of file - and even where I can save it to (I think that may be a result of such an old version?? because it looks like a very old style menu screen that pops up). What I've done in the past with all the 2D profiles is I saved them as a dwg file, which I then opened in Illustrator to make a few minor adjustments (adding the watermark, adding the profile number) & save as jpgs and tiffs that I could transfer online.

[David Bethel]

It should allow BMP TGA of TIFF. I would definetly recommend TGA format. It is a lossless image and can be used by most decent photo editors. The drawback is that your limited to screen area size. So you are pretty limited in high res images.

 

Once you select OK, you should be able to save file anywhere on your system. -David

[schuhfly18]

Dave - luckily with what I am doing I don't think I will need to spend a lot of time changing the orientation of the wood grain - I am only drawing and creating a small sample (approx. 2.5" of the profile) so that any company wishing to order the profile can see a better sample of what they are getting. I will have to look into accurender if it would make this a more streamlined process, and if it were not too pricy, it may be something my company would rather get to save all the extra time in the long run.

 

Here is an example of what the profiles currently look like on my company's website:

http://elipticon.com/knives/0135047.jpg

This website here is NOT the website of my company but this is what they would like to achieve with their profiles: http://trimpaconline.com/products/viewer_moulding.html

 

The difference is that where the second website only has maybe 100 profiles total... my company has over 2000 that would have to be changed into the 3D format, that is why I would need to find as easy/fast of a process as possible to get this done.

 

I have not tried to do anything with saving the file since last night (I need a break!) but I will get back to it later and see what I can do with the SAVEIMG command.

 

Thanks again all!