Putting 3D designs onto Carvewright

[machiwoods]

Hello there, I'm fairly familiar working with the carvewright system designing things on the main design bored, but I'm having troubles creating images using 3D CAD programs.
I created a full 3D design using Google Sketchup Pro 7, and need to send it to the carvewright program. Can someone please help me with correct way to save the file, and how to put it onto the carvewright program after finishing the project on google sketchup. If any other questions are needed please state, and I'll try to explain in better detail.
Thank you.

*sorry if this is in the wrong forum*

[JOHNB]

welcome; to the best of my knowledge, you would want to convert it into a grayscale png., then import it into designer.

[jpaluck]

yep you are going to have to create a heightmap of your model then import into designer as an image file. Designer will not import any 3d format. Hope this helps

john

[gashawk]

a quick way to bring it in as a picture is: turn it the way you want it to appear in sketch. Then press PrtSc key. Next go into paint, click on edit and click on paste. You should beable to import it as a picture after it has been cropped. But never the less it will just be a picture.

[jpaluck]

forgot but I put a couple of video tutorials on my site about the program zbrush. the first video shows how to get a heightmap so you can a good idea of what you need to have for a heightmap. Not sure if sketchup will render a heightmap..haven't used it much.

here's the link

http://www.carvemore.com/Tutorials.html

John

[machiwoods]

welcome; to the best of my knowledge, you would want to convert it into a grayscale png., then import it into designer.

Thank you for replying.

Yes, I've known about this. I'm not 100% sure how to work this though, I've downloaded the plug-in. But and used the greyscale. But when importing the image it says "the file you have selected is not a recognized graphic format"



forgot but I put a couple of video tutorials on my site about the program zbrush. the first video shows how to get a heightmap so you can a good idea of what you need to have for a heightmap. Not sure if sketchup will render a heightmap..haven't used it much.

here's the link

http://www.carvemore.com/Tutorials.html

John

Thank you John
This could help me alot, with what I'm working on. I'll try it and get back to you on how well it works for me.


a quick way to bring it in as a picture is: turn it the way you want it to appear in sketch. Then press PrtSc key. Next go into paint, click on edit and click on paste. You should beable to import it as a picture after it has been cropped. But never the less it will just be a picture.

Thanks Gashawk,
Would this keep everything that you create in 3D Model? Including Measurements? I'll test it first to see what happens.

[machiwoods]

Okay, well I've downloaded zbrush, and It's a pretty amazing program. Definetly worth a buy. I know how I can transfer from zbrush to the carvewright machine, but now I'm trying to figure out how to bring a 3D image into zbrush from google sketchup. I've already made the 3D image on Sketchup, and have exported it into a .obj but when it's imported into zbrush the program crashes. So I'm obviously doing something very wrong. I believe I'll have to travel to another forum to figure out what I need to do for this.
If you can answer this question that'd be great too.


Thanks everyone for helping.

[jpaluck]

i am not too familar with sketch-up but yep zbrush can be finiky withe the import of obj. What i do when importing a model is subdivide it in the program i am modeling in for example silo or ac3d then export as an obj subdivided to my liking. Then when in zbrush on the geometry button on the right side toolbar there is a button called SMT which is turned on by default. This is used for smoothing your model when subdividing. Turn it off. Some meshes will subdivide fine with it on and some won't you have to play around with it.

The other thing you can look into is to re-topologize your model which is a very legnthy and tedious process I found the few times I did it.

The import and the crashing and mesh's exploding has to do with zbrush liking all quads. If you do a search in the pixologic forum you will find alot of info on the subject and all the work-arounds...there are several.

[machiwoods]

I did some searching around, and found a modeling tool. I have it working now. Thanks jpaluck for all the help. The video's were great help too.

[Steven Alford]

I did some searching around, and found a modeling tool. I have it working now. Thanks jpaluck for all the help. The video's were great help too.

Would you please share the name of this modeling tool?

I know zbrush would be a good program but I cringe at spending $600. Does anyone know of a good software program (cheap or free) that will do a good job at height mapping?

[Kenm810]

Worth looking at,

http://www.carvemore.com/Tutorials.html

[Steven Alford]

Yes, they are great tutorials. But surely there is a cheaper way of doing it than $600 for zbrush. Any ideas??

[geekviking]

I read some where that versions of Bryce 3-D were free to download from ver. 5 back. It is a very versitile tool (& great landscape generator), with a pretty easy learning curve (as far as rendering software goes... :) ) but don't know if it will do the trick for you. Try it out & please give us a review if you like. :cool:

[jpaluck]

blender is a free one www.blender.org and there is a tutorial in the forum here I saw about a year ago that tell how to render a heightmap.