Rigging? Rope? Please help!

[ibewiggin]

Ok, so with the hopes of my machines being fixed soon, I am working on a project for a friend. I was thinking a crib board. Does anyone have any ideas on what would be a good pattern or idea for a "rigger" He just graduated his four year apprentice with the ship yard as a rigger. His dad sent me a picture of rope spliced into its self making a loop at the end of a rope. He called it a lanyard, but it does not seem like it would be very nice looking. Any ideas would be appreciated. I have several cribbage board patterns, and am just looking for an idea that is related to rigging.

[lawrence]

http://www.flypig.co.uk/?page=celtic

This program lets you make your own celtic knots-- with some messing around you can get a pretty good looking pattern- this was about 30 seconds of work and can obviously be made better

[lawrence]

and one more... I'm really liking this faux 3d thing (2.5d)

Lawrence

[ibewiggin]

OOOH, that is very similar to the picture he sent me! That could help. Thanks.

[edzbaker]

Lawrence, I have no Idea how you are doing it,,but that rope looks Great. !

Thanks..

Ed

[ibewiggin]

I know huh? Amazing!

[dbfletcher]

Damn.. now im jealous. I worked for weeks trying to find a good way to model rope in 3d... i never found anything that I thought was easy enough to make the process worthwhile. Of course I totally skipped the 2.5D stuff in favor of 3d solids log ago so maybe each tool has it own specialty.

[DickB]

and one more... I'm really liking this faux 3d thing (2.5d)

Lawrence
What software are you using for this?

[lawrence]

a combination of artcam (30 day trial), coreldraw, and the pattern editor software. Google sketchup warehouse has lots of places to start and you can export stl with a plugin and then play with it. The eagle I did recently was a from "scratch" (from a picture) 3d generation using artcam. The rope took about 5 minutes to make from an STL, and I think I'll probably be buying an old copy of artcam or one of the cheaper versions soon (or aspire). The newest version is $8000 so I don't think I'll be buying that one. My buddy doesn't use his account very much (and he writes his annual fees off with his business) and has told me I can borrow it (his dongle, which you need to use artcam) whenever I'd like; I'll probably be carving him a sign or two in return, which I think is more than fair.

Lawrence

[GrammaPam]

IB,
Find out if they use regular nylon rope or wire on the docks. In logging they use wire rope, very stiff, looks a bit different, too. If you come to Wednesday's gathering I can show you some. Also, I have extra cribbage pegs if you need some. My crib board pattern is wrong. I probably made a dozen or so for people before I started learning to play and found out I have a few errors no on ever mentioned. Oh, for a logo? If it's union work, and I think most dock work is, that's what they are most proud of.
G.P.

[eelamb]

Lawrence I have to agree with everyone else. The rope is great you must have a very good tutor if that was done in artcam. Where do I sign up?

[lawrence]

sorry all-- I don't mean to take credit - it was a free google sketchup file used from the google sketchup warehouse (which is MASSIVE). In case anyone is worried about the legal/ethical bounds for using the files, they are free to distribute once they are loaded into the warehouse
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/forum

At any rate, I take the sketchup file, export it as an STL, use artcam to import the stl and move it to where it is appropriately located for a pattern, export the file from artcam to a bitmap (I have to figure that whole tiff thing out I haven't done so yet) and then upload the greyscale bitmap into the pattern editor for any cleaning up and then turn it into an mpc. Really, my part was not the artistic part but was truly just manipulating already existing files.

I would love to cut out the middle man and just use the stl importer, but $$ is a bit tight these days (isn't it for everyone) and I'll just have to save up my pennies. This will probably be cheaper in the long run than artcam (will be) and my 30 days will run out sooner rather than later.

Plus I still have ed's jig to buy!

Lawrence

[eelamb]

In any case that is a great pattern, thanks for sharing. When the 30 day trial expires download aspire and continue on. Once that one expires download a 3D software package, and another and another, Then start all over with a second computer. That should give you enough time to learn and to decide which program best suits your needs.