How to create a 3D model from an image

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dramsey
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How to create a 3D model from an image

Post by dramsey » Thu Apr 28, 2016 8:39 pm

I've been printing out hundreds of Ford key fobs for an upcoming car show. I found the fob design on Thingiverse; it's a simple creation made with Makerbot's "Customizer" utility. Basically you simply pick from some pre-defined logos for various car companies, drop 'em on a base, and go.

Sadly the results are rarely very good: for example, the Ford script logo I'm using is on an oval background, so ideally it would be dropped on an oval base. However, there's no facility in Customizer to say obvious things like "Fit the oval base exactly to the oval logo", or perhaps "extend the oval base of the logo". This results in a subtle mismatch which I imagine most people won't notice but I can see it creates difficulties in printing. Not only is the resulting key fob not as strong, structurally, as it could be; it's not efficient to print.

So I thought to myself "Self, how hard could it be to create my own, vastly superior design? It's just the freaking Ford script logo on an oval. How hard could it be?"

Harder than I though. Finding a Ford script logo is trivial. Tracing it in Illustrator, using the "live trace" function to get an outline, is also trivial.

However, I can't find a modeling program that will let me "extrude" this flat image into something with some depth. People swear it should be possible in Sketchup, but I guarantee you it is not...that is, importing the traced Illustrator rendering doesn't result in something I can grab and extrude.

I've lost track of the various other modeling programs I've tried. This seems such a simple thing to do, there must be a way....

(I know I could do it by manually tracing the logo in Sketchup. Have you ever tried tracing something with fine curves in Sketchup? Yeah.)

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sthone
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Re: How to create a 3D model from an image

Post by sthone » Thu Apr 28, 2016 9:01 pm

1.) Find your desired logo
2.) Convert the image to an SVG with a free online tool
3.) Import into Tinkercad, another free browser-based tool, and you’re done! You don’t even need to download anything or install any software to achieve it!"

LINKY LINK explaining the process
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dramsey
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Re: How to create a 3D model from an image

Post by dramsey » Sat Apr 30, 2016 1:23 am

I must admit that normally I am not a fan of "online apps": what if my Internet connection is down? What happens when the company stops supporting the app? Can I save my work locally? Etc.

But I have to admit that if nothing else, TinkerCAD does do exactly what I want it to do, which in this case is importing an SVG file and letting me extrude it into the third dimension. So thanks!

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Tim
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Re: How to create a 3D model from an image

Post by Tim » Sat Apr 30, 2016 3:08 am

dramsey wrote:I must admit that normally I am not a fan of "online apps": what if my Internet connection is down? What happens when the company stops supporting the app?
There are plenty of options for getting an outline into a 3D model. One way that avoids web-based tools is to import the SVG into inkscape, write to DXF, and import into OpenSCAD (discussion elsewhere on this forum, viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3541). That thread also discusses non-web-based ways of getting the SVG file out of the image.

Hugs
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Re: How to create a 3D model from an image

Post by Hugs » Sat Apr 30, 2016 3:40 pm

Tim wrote:[...]import the SVG into inkscape, write to DXF, and import into OpenSCAD [...]
FWIW, there's also an Inkscape plug-in paths2openscad that skips the DXF step and directly creates an OpenSCAD file. I've had really good results with it.

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Tim
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Re: How to create a 3D model from an image

Post by Tim » Sat Apr 30, 2016 4:34 pm

Hugs wrote:FWIW, there's also an Inkscape plug-in paths2openscad that skips the DXF step and directly creates an OpenSCAD file. I've had really good results with it.
Thanks for the tip; I hadn't seen that one before.

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