What is the best practice for using bitmap graphics as tracing templates in ViaCAD Pro?

I have prepared a set of 5 views of a subject that I want to use to trace in making a 3D object. Each is cropped and centered in such a way that it could be imported, edge to edge in the various work planes as the sides of a box and would then be properly aligned for this purpose.

Problem is, each bitmap comes in at an arbitrary size when I import it. They were created in Photoshop at a consistent size/resolution, but the are all different when they come into ViaCAD.

I'm also having quite a time even getting them to scale properly. I highlight one of them, type in the actual size I want the image to be, but the results are erratic.

Am I going about this the wrong way?

Thanks,
Mark

Thanks, Tim. It helped a bit to see it done in the tutorial.

I'm still confused, though, by the scaling issue. I was importing a PNG image that needed to be exactly 4.0420" wide to be proper scale. Although it was sized this way in Photoshop, it always imports at some odd scale. When I select it and try to change the size, the width would pop to 4.0000". Nothing could induce it to be the correct size. The height dimension, since I was preserving the aspect ratio, would come out an odd decimal.

Thinking I'd come at it from the other direction, I tried entering the proper height dimension; the height would then pop to the nearest full unit, giving me an odd, but incorrect width dimension.

I suspect I have some "snap to grid" preference enabled, but I couldn't find it. Shouldn't entering a precise dimension override any snaps, though?

In the end, I took my templates back into Photoshop and changed the background margins to make them exactly 4" x 2".

I'm a total noob with this software, so I suspect I'm just doing something wrong. Do you have any idea what it might be?

Mark

I got my new copy of Camtasia yesterday and tried it out with a video about tracing.

http://www.csi-concepts.com/Demo/videos/Tracing.mp4

Tim

Is there a tip for making sure your lines are placed on top of the image being drawn over rather than disappearing behind it?

A couple more options to try:

Select the image and Edit:Arrange:Send to Back
or
Inspector : Data: Transparent Background


Tim

I've used send to back and bring to front, the problem is, once a line is drawn, it's invisible until one of the noted options is applied. The next line drawn is once again hidden by the image until it too is arranged thusly, very tedious work.
There are several ways one could set this up and I'm still looking for the best one. Can someone advise on a known working method/best practice for this somewhat common procedure that's been tested with Viacad Pro v7 and 8, and or others versions?

I've tried arranging both, line and image in the past, neither worked for more than the last line drawn, the next line would go behind no matter what.

A new twist - I just went to test it again and both Viacad Pro 7 and 8 will allow me to draw on an image without any futzing around. The problem is now that lines drawn on the image show up fine. Circles and splines (didn't test arcs) show as a dotted outline while in the process of drawing, then once the final point is placed the element becomes invisible, as do all curves/splines, simultaneously, leaving only lines visible UNTIL everything is deselected, when they all become visible again. This happens in both VC Pro 7 and 8 beta.

I'm drawing on a Dell Vostro 1700 laptop, Win 7 x64 SP1, 8600GT video card with the latest nVidia driver. I've used Viacad for a year on this machine and always had the drawing behind image issue, until this moment that is. Go figure. Nothing in the system has changed in months apart from Windows updates (not today).

I have a workstation that no matter what I try cannot draw lines consistently on top an image.

These issues strike me as graphics driver related. I've gone through a long list of them trying to resolve it so far.

It seems to me best practice is work normally, import jpg, draw. I guess I was hoping this was a common issue with a straightforward solution.

I have had to deal with this issue too, and not being able to see what one is doing is very frustrating and time consuming.
A technique that I found seems to work is having the image offset from the "work plane" such that in 3D one can see the drawing / element is clearly not on the drawing plane.
However, when working in an orthographic view (top/side/front) it appears that the drawing / element is above. Just remember to snap to the work plane, and not the image you are using to trace. Place all views appropriately (top image to trace goes beneath the model that you will be creating, right image offsets significantly behind the right plane, etc.)

Here's a quick file with an image of a key to be modeled. I started this and kept all the default behaviors of Viacad, I did no arranging, locking, transparency, etc. It's composed of an image and a set of XY reference lines and a single interpolate spline, the tool of choice for this project. The spline is just a short section along the top of the key's handle for now, but it shows how by default drawing did not take place on the top of the image. Regardless of how curves are ultimately drawn on top of the image, I would ask that any proposed drawing method be checked to see that splines do not disappear while being drawn nor while being selected.

Checking into...

Tim