Question about my first project

[phurm]

I am new to XaraX and have in mind my first project but have a question about how to do part of it. First the project's description:

I am a ham radio operator and just returned to the hobby after about 20 years. We send "QSL cards" to confirm contacts with other radio stations. I am redesigning my card as my first project.

Part of my old design is a radio tower - will include an image of that part. I no longer have access to the original printer of these cards so need to reproduce this tower from my scanned image.

I could recreate it just by rebuilding it from a series of lines - a process I have started but then realized that there MAY?? be a better way.

Here is my question then. Is there a way using XaraX to pull out just the black lines that make up the tower? Would Xara's help call this "extracting" part of an image or where would I read about doing something like this?

TIA

Paul Hurm
phurm@one.net

[phurm]

I am new to XaraX and have in mind my first project but have a question about how to do part of it. First the project's description:

I am a ham radio operator and just returned to the hobby after about 20 years. We send "QSL cards" to confirm contacts with other radio stations. I am redesigning my card as my first project.

Part of my old design is a radio tower - will include an image of that part. I no longer have access to the original printer of these cards so need to reproduce this tower from my scanned image.

I could recreate it just by rebuilding it from a series of lines - a process I have started but then realized that there MAY?? be a better way.

Here is my question then. Is there a way using XaraX to pull out just the black lines that make up the tower? Would Xara's help call this "extracting" part of an image or where would I read about doing something like this?

TIA

Paul Hurm
phurm@one.net

[gwpriester]

Not that I don't like white space, because I do, but this is the tiniest bit extravagant, don't you think? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img]

Hello Paul

I think recteating the image with lines using Xara's Pen Tool is the way to go.

Xara has a bitmap trace utility but on a small image like your tower, the results would not be very accurate.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

Be It Even So Humble...

[Egg Bramhill]

Paul
This drawing is'nt the simplest to recreate in Xara. It took me several attempts to get the mast looking simlar to your own. It's the struts that criss cross on all 4 sides that cause the difficulty. I attach my final attempt.
Egg

[phurm]

Thanks to both Gary and Egg for the info. The white space is not really meant to be there. Somehow the image that I uploaded had it when I only meant for the woodgrain looking piece to be what showed. I had cropped my original scan of my card to just include the tower but somehow got the extra white as part of the upload. More of my learning curve I expect.

Glad to know that my failure with the bitmap trace feature was not so much my failure to use it correctly but more based on the limits or my original image.

Egg, thanks for the .XAR file you emailed separately. I appreciate the effort and actually I will probably use the tower as is. I had run into similar conclusions about the lines and appreciate your effort in producing a final image. It certainly looks cleaner than the original!

Thanks again to both of you for your thoughts.

Paul

[rheaton]

Did this (the tower on the right) yesterday as part of some artwork I am doing for my employer to create a shirt. I put the .jpg (left) on an uneditable, but visible layer and drew lines over the top. I only drew the bottom set of cross members and used the blend tool to make the rest. Threw in the gradient behind just for grins. The beauty of Xara is that this whole process took about 15 minutes. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Paul, if you want the file, let me know and I will e-mail it to you.

[Wolfgang]

Paul,

I was watching the movie "Frequency" on DVD today. I don't know if you saw it, but a ham radio plays the key-role.

And look what I found in a scene!

So, all you have to do now, is to call Dennis Quaid and ask him for the radio tower in vector format !!

Easy as this ..

Wolfgang ;-))

[phurm]

Thought I would finish out this thread by posting an image of my final card as it came from the printer.

Thanks to Egg for the tower - the one I used is his drawing except for changes to the "radio waves" eminating from the tower.

This image is slightly truncated at the bottom - there is more blank space below the horizontal lines than shows here.

Paul

[Turan]

Do not want to sound experenced - I'm not - but I have designed some logo's in my time. I try to avoid lots of lines like in the mast. The reason being people are
1) going to use it in several size (some small)
2) somewhere along the way the logo will get photo-copied and you want the logo to still keep it's form.

Thus my advice on re-creating it is don't. Go for something new.

--
Having said that you may just want to re-create it to the Nth degree (sorry if I missed the gist).

--
PPS - I made these guidlines up myself, does anybody (more professional or otherwise) share my views?

Turan