Corel Draw vector image to a 3d rotating graphic

[timcos]

What program may I use to take a 2d vector image from Corel Draw 9 to a 3d image that could be rotated or at least posed and frozen.

[timcos]

What program may I use to take a 2d vector image from Corel Draw 9 to a 3d image that could be rotated or at least posed and frozen.

[jclements]

to dxf, dwg, or ai formats.

I think most 3D programs can import these formats; some may do better jobs than others and it will probably take some experimentation to determine what things export cleanly.

In the 3D program you may have to "fix" some lines, curves, or closed curves so that the program can manipulate them.

I am sure other members can recommend less expensive 3D programs to you if you want to do basic 3D effects manipulations.

Of the "higher end" programs, I believe Rhino (www.McNeel.com or www.Rhino3D.com) is a good value. I bought Rhino a few years ago so I could visualize the basic outlines (forms) of objects from various viewpoints that I had problems drawing in CorelDRAW. Sometimes, I export .AI files from Rhino of a 3D view, and bring that back into Draw or Xara.

If you are a student or have a child in school, you can qualify for a Student license which lowers the cost a lot.

[This message was edited by John Clements on August 29, 2003 at 22:31.]

[Gary David Bouton]

I'm with John's advice here--you could export the path(s) from CorelDRAW to Illustrator format (ex: MyFile.ai). Most modeling apps will accept an Illustrator import: Bryce, Vue, trueSpace, to name but a few.

I think you can accomplish basic extrudes in many programs to get a 3D effect out of your path(s).

BTW, you can download a copy of trueSpace for free:
http://forms.caligari.com/forms/ts3all_free.html


My Best,
Gare

[Earl]

Yup, those two know their stuff (John and Gary). I personally use the *.AI format. It seems to produce the best curve representation when I export from Corel Draw 10.

Most programs (all as far as I know) only import the actual curves. Things like transparencies, and other special effects from Corel won't translate over.

[Gary David Bouton]

Yes, Earl...

Anchor points and connecting vectors. That's what most 3D apps can only use: no fills, no transparency, and so on. Vector information about a path is all they (and we!) need.

My Best,
Gare

[gidgit]

OK, this is a cool topic, now could somebody please show us an example of just when and how one would use this technique ?

[This message was edited by gidgit on September 01, 2003 at 10:26.]

[Earl]

Sure Gidget. I'd post one now, but it's late and I really should be asleep.

Tomorrow morning, from work, I'll post an example I've been using for a project for our Atlanta office (it'll need to be edited slightly to ensure our engineers don't get uppity about security).

[Earl]

Well, this is what I've been doing for a recent project. Here's the backdrop: an engineer from our Atlanta office needs to present a visualization to the client to give him an idea of what the site will look like with our designed 'tank' (I use the word 'tank' in order to protect the intellectual property of the design, which does not belong to me, but the company I work for). So, the engineer gives me some photos of the site, taken of some open areas where they are proposing to build this 'tank.' Then he gives me the CAD drawings of this 'tank' and asks me to model it in 3D, render it to perspective, match the camera, and plop it into the photos. Fine and dandy. So, here's some of things I had to do in order to accomplish this:

1) I had to take existing CAD drawings of the site, which had dimensions and positions for the road, the existing buildings, and the proposed 'tanks,' and bring it into CorelDRAW to clean up the nasty line work associated with CAD files. Once I had a clean file, I took the top view (bird's eye view) and exported to an AI file from Corel. I brought that AI file into LightWave, and built basic shapes at the specified dimensions to represent the existing buildings, and the road.

2) Taking the CAD file of the 'tank,' I extracted a profile of it (note the files I used below are NOT what this thing really looks like - just an example) exported it to AI format. Imported the profile into LightWave, lathed it around the Y-axis (to scale), then plopped the 'tanks' into the appropriate locations (shown in the layout drawing as two small circles).

3) In LightWave, I turned off the 'tanks' and left the existing buildings (as crude primitives). Using those buildings as a reference, and using the photos he wanted the 'tanks' added to, I matched the buildings to the photos in order to determine the exact location of the camera, and the lens that the camera was using. Once this perspective as matched, and the buildings matched the angles/location of the buildings in the background photos, I turned off the buildings and road (the road matched up PERFECTLY with the one in the photos!), turned on the 'tanks' - jacked up the render settings (antialiasing, reflection maps, fresnel effects, ray-traced shadows, etc), then rendered it out. The result was a photo with two CG 'tanks' placed in to look just like they had been built before the photo was taken.

Anyhow, sorry for the large image. This is just one example of how exporting curves from programs like CorelDRAW, Xara, or Illustrator can be useful in a production environment (or outside a production environment!).

[Gary David Bouton]

Earl...

Thanks! Beautiful example/explanation!


-g-