Wrinkled Blueprint for John Clements...

[Ross Macintosh]

In this tread John was asking about wrinkled effects. Egg posted a photorealistic example that, if I understand correctly, was produced with a three-D modeling program. I don't use 3-d modeling programs so I do what I can in Xara. I've found in the past that it isn't all that important to wrinkle the linework to get a wrinkled look --- often a fake can suit the need.

What I did below was very easy. To get the wrinkles I overlayed a bitmap of wrinkled paper (the same source texture Gary used in the other thread). It was contoned to lessen its contrast & make it look more like a greyscale image. Stained glass transparency was applied with an eliptical shape. The eliptical handles were adjusted so the centre was more transparent than the edges. That transparent bit map was cloned and changed to bleach transparency. The handles were adjusted some.

I think the end result gets the idea of a wrinkled blueprint across without being a complicated approach. It is funny-strange that when you look at the drawing it can look like the sketch is distorted by the wrinkles even though it isn't. Your mind is perceiving it as wrinkled.

I'm going to Annapolis Royal this afternoon. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Regards, Ross

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[Ross Macintosh]

In this tread John was asking about wrinkled effects. Egg posted a photorealistic example that, if I understand correctly, was produced with a three-D modeling program. I don't use 3-d modeling programs so I do what I can in Xara. I've found in the past that it isn't all that important to wrinkle the linework to get a wrinkled look --- often a fake can suit the need.

What I did below was very easy. To get the wrinkles I overlayed a bitmap of wrinkled paper (the same source texture Gary used in the other thread). It was contoned to lessen its contrast & make it look more like a greyscale image. Stained glass transparency was applied with an eliptical shape. The eliptical handles were adjusted so the centre was more transparent than the edges. That transparent bit map was cloned and changed to bleach transparency. The handles were adjusted some.

I think the end result gets the idea of a wrinkled blueprint across without being a complicated approach. It is funny-strange that when you look at the drawing it can look like the sketch is distorted by the wrinkles even though it isn't. Your mind is perceiving it as wrinkled.

I'm going to Annapolis Royal this afternoon. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[gwpriester]

Ross

The effect is very good except the wrinkles to me are not sharp enough and so the blueprint looks more like fabric.

Also, given the nature of blueprint paper, I'm not sure if it would wrinkle. It is so brittle it would probably crack or tear don't you think?

All those things aside, the effect is very credible.

Gary

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XaraXone

[Clements]

Ross, what you posted above is similar to what I eventually came up with.

Would you mind posting your XAR file (or a portion of it if its too big to post otherwise)? I'd like to examine the transparency settings.

Regards, John

[Ross Macintosh]

In defence of my wrinkles, (now that's a strange thing to write [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]) I suppose mine look more like the result of the paper getting wet than crumpled. Wrinkles come in lots of different models.

And now for more than anyone ever wanted to know about blueprints:
Blueprints are printed (a kind of photo-mechanical transfer really) using diazo paper. Typically the paper is just bond that was given the uv sensitive emulsion. The original is overlayed directly on the print paper and the pair are exposed to UV light. The diazo paper is then processed with amonia vapor. The emulsion that was exposed most to the light goes clear and the emulsion masked by the original goes black, blue, red, or sepia-toned depending on the emulsion. Red & Sepia are not common. Most diazo prints are either "blacklines" or "bluelines" and the process is known as diazo whiteprinting. (Many people call it "blueprinting" but that is incorrect because what you actually get is a whiteprint). Every page printed is a photo-mechanical copy of the original. There is no printing plate, and typically there is no camera work. Camera work (or traditional PMT [photomechanical transfer]) is needed if you want to turn a line drawing into a traditional looking blueprint - ie white lines on a blue background. A negative version of your drawing (usually on a photosensitive piece of acetate film) has to be created and that piece of film is used in the diazo process as an original.

Diazo printing is far from archival in quality. They are very unstable. Hung in a window, a print can fade from view in a few days. Kept from light they can last for many years. The bond-type paper used can be quite poor in quality - like newsprint, it often suffers acid damage and can get smelly and brittle. Properly stored, a print can look good for many years. The technology remains viable although photocopying is gradually taking over. Construction plans continue to be whiteprinted. In my city it costs about 20 cent per square foot and the turnaround is quick. My office's whiteprinting bill would likely be about $10,000 per year. I feel sorry for the minimum-wage employees at the printer who have to hand feed each page into the ammonia processing machines. Not great work! They have to be careful too - jambs can rip an original. These days with CAD drawings, originals aren't worth all that much as a new original can be plotted. Handdrawn originals on the other hand can have hundreds of person-hours of design/drafting in them and so their owners can get quite mad about having one ripped. It has happened to my drawings and it can break your heart.


I've attached a .xar version if anyone wants to check out the bitmap settings. The crumpled paper bitmap used as an overlay came from the Xara3D4 cd -- I believe the same one is on the Xara X cd. The fabric background is one I created.

Regards, Wrinkled Ross

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[This message was edited by Ross Macintosh on March 18, 2002 at 10:38.]

[gwpriester]

Ross

Thanks for the primer on blue printing or blue line printing.

I was always under the impression that blue print paper had a bit of colored fiber in it, but they either might have changed, or was never the case.

During my "mature" years in the Army, I worked in a drafting and reproduction section in Bethesda, Maryland with the catchy name of STAG, (Strategy and Tactics Analysis Group). We had some diazo equipment that we used to produce blue line documents, among other reproducing equipment.

The mature part came from the practice of placing an amonia-soaked piece of cheese cloth in one of the other fellow's desk drawers, then seeing the look of utter delight on the other fellow's face when he opened his desk drawer and took a nice deep inhale of amonia!

Hard to believe that we were actually reproducing very sensitive materials for the Pentagon in our department :-)

Gary

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[Ross Macintosh]

use for industrial strength ammonia is that you can spray it on the ground around your property boundries. Intention: to keep your cats within your yard and all others away. I'm not sure how effective it is but an old friend used to do it.

He had several very old cats that had to be kept in cages because, according to him, their bones would break if they jumped - very-very old cats. It caused his caged cats much stress when neighborhood cats would stroll past his windows. To keep those free cats away from his cat prison he resorted to the ammonia 'fence'. He would use the old ammonia from diazo printers - even though used it was considerably stronger than 'Windex' or household cleaning ammonia. Funny thing was the old diazo ammonia took on a yellowish colour. I wonder what his neighbors thought he was doing when they saw him pouring yellow liquid from a big jug at the boundies between their properties. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Regards, Ross

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[Ross Macintosh]

The print paper of 20 years ago occasionally had a chunk of fiber - like bark or something. Nothing intentional, just an indication of poor quality control. In the years since it has been as good as regular bond.

It is quite possible that the military's supplier used rag fiber in the paper. I don't recall ever seeing it in the construction industry. I have seen many old prints in our Province's public archives and they never had such fiber. Many of the architectural drawings in the archive were drafted on clay treated linen fabric and not paper. It feels like you are handling something really special when you touch one.

Regards, Ross

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[Crow Haven]

use for ammonia--for woodworkers out there who might not know--is to darken oak naturally which gives a realistic aged look...especially nice for "arts and crafts" style furniture, etc. The wooden piece is placed in an enclosed area with a pan of ammonia and left for a day or till sufficiently darkened.
---As The Crow Flies!---
Maya

[Ross Macintosh]

Ammonia fumes would create the look of pickled oak. (ie a whitewashed look). If not ammonia, what chemical creates that bleached oak look? Lye darkens cherry but I'm not sure its effect on other wood.

Regards, Ross

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