Creating labels for curved surfaces

[Albacore]

For a few jobs that I did in a print shop a few years ago I didn't use a 2D drawing programme which if I was in my own house I would have used. Using masking tape and rule I stuck the tape down around the top of the box the distance down that I wanted it to start, right around the circumference of the box. This gave me the measurements of the circumference and I also marked onto the tape the middle of each side, roughly the size of each corner and also the centre of the corner. I did the same for the bottom of the label drawing on the masking tape the appropriate centres and lengths. Knowing these sizes I went at that time I laid the first main side then drew a radii for both corners, top & bottom, had to accept that it was 1/4 of diameter, then tangentially to circles the sides, marking centreline. Then copied and pasted each corner and each side onto the correct position. The tapered box was for a local company who were marketing nails and the design was simple can't remember the size but it must have been around 350mmx200mmx150mm. Tried using the Arc Tool and using a percentage with length of the bottom cord over the top but this was inaccurate.

[Boy]

Thanks for the file, Egg. Very effective method.

[JimMooreATL]

To clarify an earlier question, We are printing adhesive labels that wrap around the bucket and overlap 1/4" on the ends to cover up old artwork. For a production run, the bucket company prints these directly onto the buckets instead of using labels. These are mockups for new products using the bucket that will go into production so they can show dealers and take to tradeshows to show off new products coming up in the next year. For this run, we have 40 different designs on 10 different size and shaped buckets. Some round tapered but most were rounded square tapered. After doing a little more research and alot of trigonometry (Google is a wonderful tool!), I had an A-HA moment and realized that the tapered bucket is also a cone shape just molded with rounded square edges... Take a cone and stuff it into that mold and that's what comes out. The math works exactly the same as a round taper. I actually created a spreadsheet that I can plug in the diameter of the bucket where the label should start, how tall the label should be and the circumference where the bottom of the label ends and it worked perfect. Luckily for this run, we are producing either straight or trapezoid shaped labels for the sides of most of the rounded square buckets, but I am doing a few designs on rounded and square tapered buckets. My spreadsheet gives me the diameter of the outer circle and inner circle and the angle that is used to trim the arc. If I want an overlap, I plug in that number as well and it adjust the angle for me. Then I created a template in Illustrator that has 2 circles and 2 vertical paths all centered on each other. I plug in the measurements, adjust one of the vertical paths to the correct angle and use the divide function and it produces the correct arc template for me to warp the artwork to. I know this is a Xara forum but the guidance has been invaluable. I'll be happy to share the spreadsheet after this project and I make sure that everything works correctly. And I'd be happy to supply an EPS version of the Illustrator template as well. After I get the arc generated, I use our cutting plotter to plot out the shape onto clear static cling material to test it on the bucket. So far so good. I'd love to hear your feedback and any questions you might have. Thanks for all your help!

Jim

[Egg Bramhill]

I had an A-HA moment and realized that the tapered bucket is also a cone shape just molded with rounded square edges...

That's what I said several days ago

Consider the four rounded corners are like Xhris's paper cup but quartered evenly in the vertical plane which are then joined together by four straight sides.

Anyway glad you got it sorted. It would be good to see a photo of the finished product.

[ernie-f]

For all who needs to calculate labels for curved surfaces there ia a little app caled Siatki. The version 1.01 is for free. You can download it here. http://gremirmodels.com/downloads.htm

[Egg Bramhill]

Thanks for the link Ernie.

[wizard509]

Thank you Ernie.

[amybbehrens]

Good evening,
I am hoping to access both sets of instructions provided in this forum, however I cannot access this file type .xar.

Any advice or assistance is greatly appreciated.

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi Amy and welcome to Talk Graphics. This thread is over two years old and it'd need a lot of wading through for any member:

to access both sets of instructions provided in this forum

I believe what you are asking is how to open a .xar file. It is the native file type (along with .web) for Xara software. You can download a months fully functioning free trial at:

LINK

[kaylatmiller]

i can not open the file

Hi everyone,

I came across a challenge this morning that I solved and thought people here could benefit from my work. The task was to create a label to put around a cup. Unfortunately the cup was conical in shape which made designing a label more difficult than creating a rectangular strip.

Fortunately the conical cup was rotationally invariant but I realised I’d need to do some mathematics to solve the problem. I considered producing a full walkthrough of the geometric calculations and logic but then decided it was inappropriate for TG and have instead just made a mini-tutorial with the essentials needed to complete the task for simplicity and ease of understanding.

(See figure below). Essentially, you just have to measure the top and bottom circumference of the cup and its height. Then stick the numbers into the equations in the attached xar file and get values of the two radii of curvature and angle between the arcs swept out (making sure you convert to degrees from radians). These last three parameters allow you to draw a scale diagram in Xara to get the arc area region needed. Once you’ve designed the surface logo about a rectangle of similar dimensions to the arc region, you can use the Mould tool to map it accordingly. Any bitmaps may need to be traced to be correctly moulded.

Hope people find it useful at some point.

Xhris