Joined
·
1,590 Posts
The recent thread on the Roman Potter's tray got me thinking about how to take a photo (or painting) and come up with a design of the pictured object. I do this sort of thing fairly often and a number of comments made me realize there is interest in how one might do that. The following post is an abbreviated version of my blog post here.
If you've been woodworking for a while, you've probably had someone come to you with a picture asking "can you make this?" Or perhaps your spouse shows you a picture of a piece of furniture that is wildly expensive but doesn't look that hard to make. If nothing else, it's an opportunity to acquire a tool with spousal approval! But how do you go from picture to plans?
First, you need to have some CAD skills. You don't need to be a maestro at it but do need to be able make a simple drawing and add dimensions. Here are the basic steps:
In the photos, you can see a picture of an end-table I own. I applied perspective correction to the photo (see blog for more details on what software you could use). Imported the photo into CAD software. Usually you will have overall dimensions so you can use that to scale. In this case the table is 26x17x25. Dimensioned the width and height and then scaled so the photo is the proper size. Then added dimensions of the various features. Then adjusted (normalized) the dimensions so they are consistent with standard lumber dimensions and are consistent with each other. Like rails are likely all the same size. Also, trace any profiles that you will need to cut.
From there, you should be able to model the object with a good degree of fidelity.
If you've been woodworking for a while, you've probably had someone come to you with a picture asking "can you make this?" Or perhaps your spouse shows you a picture of a piece of furniture that is wildly expensive but doesn't look that hard to make. If nothing else, it's an opportunity to acquire a tool with spousal approval! But how do you go from picture to plans?
First, you need to have some CAD skills. You don't need to be a maestro at it but do need to be able make a simple drawing and add dimensions. Here are the basic steps:
- Modify the photo to correct for perspective distortion.
- Find a reference object of known (or knowable) size. In the Roman Potter thread, I used the guy's arm as a reference.
- Scale the corrected photo so the reference object is the correct size.
- Dimension the important features.
- "Normalize" the dimension so they are consistent with standard sizes.
- Trace out any profiles for later use in modeling.
- Use the dimensions and profile(s) to model the object.
In the photos, you can see a picture of an end-table I own. I applied perspective correction to the photo (see blog for more details on what software you could use). Imported the photo into CAD software. Usually you will have overall dimensions so you can use that to scale. In this case the table is 26x17x25. Dimensioned the width and height and then scaled so the photo is the proper size. Then added dimensions of the various features. Then adjusted (normalized) the dimensions so they are consistent with standard lumber dimensions and are consistent with each other. Like rails are likely all the same size. Also, trace any profiles that you will need to cut.
From there, you should be able to model the object with a good degree of fidelity.
Attachments
-
1.5 MB Views: 230
-
823 KB Views: 226
-
901.8 KB Views: 221
-
1,012.4 KB Views: 211