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Back to Tutorials
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Part 11 The Scaled Drawing Layout
Layers
Up
to now everything has been produced on layer one of the twenty
available layers within Blender. By organising your work onto different
layers, Blender allows you to set different lighting and rendering
parameters for objects on different layers. As we need to combine some
of the objects rendered with the edge render facility of blender,
together with others that do not use the edge setting we will need to
organise our layers and render output.
Firstly we will set our scene. If you still have a .blend file open,
save your work Ctrl-W
and then open a new file Ctrl-X.
Save the new file Ctrl-W
as "608-Layout.blend". |
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Append
all the A4p objects from the PageTemplate.blend file produced in
part 10. Shift-F1
to open the File Browser window in Append mode and from the
"PageTemplate.blend" file LMB
click Object then RMB
select all the A4p objects. Click on Load Library to bring them into
the new file. They will be placed on Layer one, as this was the layer
they were created on.
Now
append all the parts of the 608 Bearing into the file. In front view NumPad 1 select all
the components of the bearing and move them G
to the top left corner of the page template. As the bearing is only
22mm across we will scale it 2:1. With all the components still
selected press S
for scale then 2 for
the scale factor. The bearing will double in size.
Open
the outliner as detailed in Part
4. All the components of the Border and Bearing will be
listed. |
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Copy
the bearing (all
bearing components selected) Ctrl-D
and move the
copy on the X-axis
to the right hand side of the original. In top view NumPad
7 Rotate
the bearing 90
degrees. Go back into front view NumPad
7. |
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now have a front and side
view, within the page border. |
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With
the side view still selected copy the components and move them below
the original. This will be used to create a part section through the
bearing. |
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Front, Side and Part Section view of the bearing needs to be
rendered using Blenders edge render facility and therefore needs to be
rendered separately |
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from
the rest of the layout.
Box select the three bearings and press M which will open
the Layer Move panel click on layer 2 and press OK. The two bearings
will disappear from view until layer 2 is activated. To bring the
bearings back into view, Shift-LMB
on layer 2 in the view header’s layers panel.
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If your computer is
slowing down due to the amount of detail in the bearing’s you
can delete the components that won’t be seen. |
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the balls, both cages the back dust shield and circlip from
the front
view and all but the 608-Race from the
side view. The section view needs all the components. |
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We
now need to set the
material to give a line drawing effect. Select the race of the side
view and in the Material panel of the Material buttons, change Col to
white (click on the
grey square next to it and choose
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from the
colour picker) Click
Shadeles so the
colour isn't affected by any lamps in the scene. |
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In the Link and Material panel of the Edit buttons select "2
Mat
2" to choose the second material and press Delete to delete it.
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In the Links and
Pipelines panel click on the small Car button to auto name the colour. |
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In the Mirror Trans tab
make sure Ray
Mirror is not
selected. |
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In the Texture tab click
Clear to remove the texture. |
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Change
the SizeX: and SizeY: to those detailed on the page template, (text
outside the
Page Border). Set the output to PNG and select RGBA.
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the render with a transparent background
allowing us to overlay the lined drawing over the standard render. |
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In the Render Layer tab
of the Render Buttons click Layer 2 which will restrict the render to
the objects on this layer. |
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On
the Output tab click Edge and then Edge Settings.
In the Edge Settings pop up window change Eint: to 2.
This will set the line intensity so it predominantly highlights the
main edges. |
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Click on the Camera and
in the Edit buttons Camera panel click on Orthographic to use the
orthographic camera mode.
Set
the scale to 279.4 as detailed on the page template.
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With
the
mouse over the 3D view press N
to open the Transform Properties window
and set the camera view parallel to the Page Template.RotX:90,
Y:0, Z:0.
Align the Camera with the page boundary.
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In
the World panel of the Material buttons set the background colour to
white.
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are
now setup to give us a line render but before we do this we need to
section and scale the Part Section view. |
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De select All then in wire view Box select the
components of the bearing we are going to use for a section
view.
Go into local view NumPad
/. Then Shift-RMB
the outer race and join all the components Ctrl-J.
Its easier to cut through the bearing as a single mesh than to have to
repeat the cuts for each component. |
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In
top view NumPad 7
De select All
the vertices then Box
select all the vertices to the front of the bearing centre (not the vertices on the centre
line).
Delete X
these vertices.
Zoom in SW
on the centre of the bearing and delete any remaining vertices that
were missed by the Box select.
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In front view NumPad
1 repeat the
process of
selecting and deleting vertices. This time though remove the
lower quadrant of the bearing. |
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In top view Box select the
single row of vertices on the bearing centre line.
Copy
these vertices Shift-D
and move them on the Y
axis forward of the bearing.
Separate them from the bearing P.
We
will use this slice through the bearing to add the hatch pattern to the
section view. |
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Tab
into Object Mode
and
go into Global view NumPad
/. select the slice through the bearing we have just
created and go back into Local view NumPad
/ for this
object. Tab into Edit Mode.
Link
select L
each closed area of the slice and fill the area Shift-F with faces.
Beautify the fill Alt-F
to give a cleaner mesh. |
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Press A to
de-select the vertices then repeat the process on the next
closed area.
Continue until all the faces of the section are filled.
De-select All
vertices. |
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Link select the two
areas that represent the bearing race and in top view NumPad 7 move them G forward of the other
areas of the bearing, on the Y
axis.
Repeat this for the other areas of the section making sure no
two components touch each other on the same plane.
This is necessary so the Edge Render filter can detect the edge of each
component. |
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Link
select the inner and outer race sections.
We are now going to add a hatch pattern to this area.
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In
the Link and Materials panel of the Editing buttons press
"New" to add a new material.
Press Assign to assign this material index to the selected
vertices. |
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In
the Texture Buttons Texture tab click the number next to the TE:Tex box
and accept single user. Add New to add a new texture. In the Texture
Type button click None and then select Image from
the pop up menu.
RMB Click
on the hatch patterns opposite and "Save Target As..." to save the
images.
In
the Image panel load "LineAngle1.png". To make the hatch
render smaller, repeat the texture on the section by changing Xrepeat:
and Yrepeat: to 2 in the Map Image panel. |
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If
you render the image at this stage a hatch pattern will be created on
the
bearing race.
To add further hatch patterns
Link select the area to hatch (for
this example both halves of
the bearing cage).
In the Links and Materials panel of the
Edit Buttons Click "New" then "Assign". Material 3 has been created and
assigned to the selected vertices.
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texture
to single user. In the Image panel of the
Texture Buttons change the texture to "LineAngle2.png" |
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Repeat this process until
all the section faces are filled with a hatch pattern.
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repeat to resize the textures. |
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We
are now ready to render the line drawing. In the Render Buttons, Render
panel , press "Render". Or use the keyboard shortcut F12.
When
complete close the Render window and save the image F3 as 608-Line.png.
Save you work Ctrl-W |
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For the
rest of the layout we won't need to use the edge rendering
setup, so on the Render buttons Output tab de-select edge. In the
Render Layers tab select layer 1
To
add dimensions to the
layout we will use the Blender Caliper script. The script doesn't come
already loaded with blender but can be downloaded from alienhelpdesk.com
Follow
the instructions
on their site to load the script. And read the user documentation. |
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In
blender split the view and open a script window as detailed for the
Bevel script in part
4. But this time load the "Blender Caliper" script
from the "Wizards" section of the scripts pop up list.
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to first click "Update Menus" from the same
pop up list to register the script in Blender. |
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Before
we can dimension the bearing we need to add some points to dimension.
In Edit Mode select Shift-RMB
the two vertices at the widest point of the bearing on the same
edge loop.
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Copy these Shift-D
in the Z
axis below the bearing.
Extrude
these vertices in the Z axis to the point where you want the dimension
to be. |
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Then extrude them again
so the dimension lines will pass the dimension arrow.
Shift-RMB
select the 6 vertices of the dimension line and separate P them from the 608-race
mesh
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Tab
into Object Mode and select the Dimension Lines. Tab back into Edit
Mode for this object. In the Edit Buttons Link and Materials panel
change the objects name to Dim.
Select the two middle vertices of the dimension lines and with Blender
Caliper set as indicated above press "Measure".
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Tab
into Edit Mode for the Dim object and select all the vertices on the
left hand dimension lines. To thicken these lines for rendering extrude
them -0.2mm on the X axis.
Repeat this on the right hand lines extruding them 0.2mm on the x axis.
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Link
select one of
the dimension lines and copy it Shift-D.
Move it over the bearing and re shape it to form
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the section markers.
In
the Material buttons
Links and Pipeline panel change the material to Black.
In Object Mode copy one of the dimensions text objects and Tab into Edit
Mode. Change the text to Z, Tab
back into Object
Mode. Move Z to the
section marker. Copy this and move it to the other marker. |
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Select
one of the dimension text objects and copy it to below the section
view. Change the text as indicated and scale the text to a suitable
size.
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fill in the fields in the Title Box. |
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The
final part to the layout is to add the 3D image of the bearing created
in Part 9, along with the exploded view.
to
do this add a Plane and Move it G
to the top right
corner of
the
layout. Scale the plane Shift-S
to fit in the area next to the line
drawing.
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In the Material buttons
Links and Pipeline panel add a new material. In
the Material panel set the material to Shadeless.
In
the Texture buttons Texture panel add a new texture. set the texture
type to Image and in the Image panel load the rendered 3D view created
in Part 9. |
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The image won't be
visible on the plane until it is rendered.
To
ensure the Plain is set at the correct aspect ratio for the image,
in Object Mode select the Plane and press Alt-V. The planes shape will
change to suit the
loaded image. Reposition the plane if necessary.
Add
another Plane
in the lower right area of the layout and repeat the above process but
this time load the Exploded View.png from Part 9
If
you render the Layout now F12 you will get an image with all the Layout
elements except the line drawings. |
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In
the Format panel of the
Render Buttons leave the output as PNG but
change the image format to RGB. We don't need an alpha channel on this
image.
Press F12
to render the image. Close the render window, press F3 and save the
image as 608-Layout.png
The final stage is to combine the 608-Line.png created above with the
608-Layout.png.
This can be carried out either using the Node Editor within Blender or
by using an external image editing program such as gimp.
The Node Editor is to complex to cover in this tutorial so, In the
image
editor of your choice open both 608-Layout.png and 608-Line.png. Copy
608-Line.png to the clipboard and paste it into 608-Layout.png as a new
layer. The line drawing will sit over the layout drawings without
obscuring them because it was saves with a transparent background.
Finally in the Image Editing program resize the image to 300 dpi.
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The final result gives a good layout drawing,
easily capable of
communicating the essential elements of a product design. With
sufficient planning and forethought any component could be created,
rendered and dimensioned in Blender.
The Layout and drawing style no doubt won't comply with ISO drawing
standards. It will however be perfectly adequate to manufacture to.
If
you were new to Blender when you started this tutorial, hopefully you
have come a long way to understanding the Blender concept. Perfect your
skills by measuring components and modelling them in Blender. Read all
available tutorials and Internet guides. The program is free,
so to support its continued development, buy the books from
the
Blender Shop or as your experience grows support the on line community
with tutorials and advice
to new users.
I hope you have enjoyed and benefited from this tour through Blenders
modelling tools and hope you go on to become an active member of the
Blender community.
End |
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