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Creating labels for curved surfaces
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
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Hi,
Great work and thanks for the formula.
Jim
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Great formula but need to measure and work out, have a look at attached file, looks a bit complected but is quite simple, have tried to get it layed out on a single sheet, just mark out and draw, not to good with the maths so with trianglation not needed.
Have a good day all
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Hi jeffb, I didn't quite follow your instructions; I think this kind of thing is best shown in a video. Edit: Oh wait, now I think I get the basics of it. Does this really work for all cup sizes?
You did make me realise that some people may struggle a bit with the maths, so I wrote a replacement tutorial with an example of how to solve the equations step-by-step. Hope it makes things easier for people.
Xhris
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
OK Xhris
Believe me this will work for anything, I was doing this after 5year apprentaship 40 years or so ago, have used it from small to big and when I say big would a ships funnel do!!
Yes the basic isvery sound practice and just needs adapting for other things, but as I say the basics are long proved
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Jeffb, your method is approximate. It is not precise. In your illustration it's quite clearly visible that the perimeter of the wide end of the cup is longer than the long side of your label.
Although all other dimensions are correct (curvature of the label sides and width).
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Well, that's two tutorials for people depending on approach. I'm sure people will find them useful. Thanks jeffb.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
I did this once years ago when I needed to create a label for a tapered container. Not being good with math, I wrapped a piece of paper around the surface like a cone. Then I drew a vertical line at both ends.
I unfolded the cone, placed the paper on a large piece of illustration board and extended the lines outward until the crossed. At the intersection of the two lines, I fashioned a large compass to draw curved lines on the area of the paper that would be the label, and added my text to that curve (manually cutting apart type set text).
Your method is probably easier. :)
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
That's what I thought about doing for a minute when I first started...then I remembered I had a maths background :). I'll make a video as well in a bit. Probably not including the calculations (that's boring and self-explanatory now with the new xar file I attached before), but about drawing the scale diagram. It's really easy. Actually, I've got a good idea for a video...
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
I think the bast way is to combine these two methods. The first part form jeffb is simpler. But we still need some math for label length.
Here how this can be done.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Video. YT is a bit funny about which videos it turns into HD it seems. If it starts jerking me around with this one such that I have to delete it and upload the same thing with slightly different settings until I stumble by pure luck across something it likes at the time it processes it (seemingly random), then this video link may become invalid. Full HD video here.
PS. Does anyone know how to make these embedded videos go to full screen when the full screen button is clicked? If so, PM me (don't post here OT).
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
When I use to teach technical drawing to school pupils it would be with Jeff's method. As this label is fairly small any inaccuracies would be very small and therefore quite acceptable. However if this was going to be used in a building to a larger scale than a label then maths would need to be used.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Good afternoon
I take note of what Covoxer states but I did the example quick and simple to show a diff. method, if the base circle is split finer ie 5 or 10 degrees which would make the example drawing far to busy to follow, the accuracy is far better the finner that this is made the more accurate the finished job.
I can state from experiance from laying out some very large projects on a drawing floor as big as a football pitch that it does work with good accuracy, good old Ministry of Defence as any one else could not afford such a thing as oak decked drawing floors.
Anyway enough of that and cheers for the chat.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jeffb
if the base circle is split finer ie 5 or 10 degrees which would make the example drawing far to busy to follow, the accuracy is far better the finner that this is made the more accurate the finished job.
Isn't it easier to make a trivial calculation (see the file attached to my previous post) then?
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
John ... your movie .... BRAVO !
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Yes John, great movie! :)
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Great one, John! :D
I guess Xhris' name is not John? Is it?
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
excellent stuff
thank you so much:D
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Awesome video and instructions. I have a challenge right now creating labels for tapered square pails with rounded edges. Would this technique work for these as well? Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated!
Attachment 107217
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
If you are using Xara Designer Pro X10 or a related Xara product, you can apply a perspective envelope with the Mould Tool.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
I agree, that will work fine for screen, Gary.
I've a feeling that Jim wants to print them out for his pails though?
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
I think it's not an issue for any container with a flat surface - most people would either produce square graphics, or slope the vertical edges, keeping the graphics on the face and not wrapping around the curved edges.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
I think if you really needed to do a wrap around label to sweep around the whole pail then you could do it like this:
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.
It would be fairly straight forward then draw the shape required. The difficult part would be actually measuring the quarter circumference lengths which is not as simple as measuring the circumference of the paper cup.
See attached xar
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
If you made a label that needed to be physically wrapped around the tapered box with curved edges, you would be mad. It would be very expensive in time to apply properly and for no good reason.
Chances are that anyone applying such a label as a stick-on is going to make a complete mess of it. It would also be very wasteful of paper.
About the only way to make a wrapable design on that shape would be with shrink plastic, a spray or a sleeve (also very fiddly).
I'd just put the label on the flat side.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
The operative word was "challenge" Paul, as in how would you go about it. I don't believe Xhris in his original post was seriously going to print out & use labels for paper cups, it was reproducing the shape that was the challenge ;)
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Egg, I wasn't responding to XHris, but to JimMooreATL.
It depends if his challenge is a real one or a conceptual one.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Here's one I made earlier :)
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Looks great Egg. How did you do that?
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Thanks Paul / Boy
Please find attached xar file.
The coloured "wave" shapes have a stained glass transparency to allow the background pail to show through.
The grid was just a series of blends, converted to shapes and added.
There's a white highlight to bring forward the curved corner with heavy feathering and a flat transparency
The text is just plane text with an envelope mould applied to suggest going around the corners. I made "keep" duplicates (off the main drawing) in case I wanted to rejig them slighty
There's a black shape with transparency to darken the buckets left hand side
Hide the "Pail Bitmap" layer to view just the vector shapes and move them about to view them against the Pale Blue Background.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
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.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Thanks for the file, Egg. Very effective method.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
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
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Quote:
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 :)
Quote:
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.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
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
Attachment 107431
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
Thanks for the link Ernie.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
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.
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
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:
Quote:
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
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Re: Creating labels for curved surfaces
i can not open the file
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Xhris
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