Bring 2d Scanned shapes into TS?

Product design in 3D, mechanical engineering, kinematics, dynamics, parts and components, surfacic, assemblies...

Moderators: remi77, jacs, Daniel

scottatTS
Private First Class
Private First Class
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed May 12, 2010 6:32 am

Bring 2d Scanned shapes into TS?

Unread post by scottatTS »

How do I take a 2d line art scanned curve in a typical scanned format (e.g. .bmp) and bring it into TS directly and use it?

A customer has a large complex piece of wood molding they want us to recreate. I want to import this shape as a bitmap (or other scanned format) and re-create it in TS so we can chainsweep it on the CNC.

I can trace the profile on a sheet of paper and scan it as a black and white line bitmap. How do I use that to re-create the EXACT shape in TS?

I do NOT want to try to recreate the shape using a micrometer and piecing together various mathematical curves using the standard functions in TS like an arc blend, a circle, an ellipse, spline, etc. I've tried and on a complex shape it takes hours and the result is not a smooth as a hand-drawn image.

I hand-draw complex curved shapes from time to time for furniture feet or moldings and it would be great to quickly convert a scan of these into lines in TS that we can then machine.
ken
Sergeant
Sergeant
Posts: 61
Joined: Fri Jul 08, 2016 5:12 pm
Answers: 4
TopSolid Module: TopSolid'Wood
TopSolid Version: 6.20

Re: Bring 2d Scanned shapes into TS?

Unread post by ken »

Hi ScottatTS,

I am new to TS but I tried this the other day and was able to trace over a drawing sent by a customer using "Tools>Background bitmap" I haven't played around with it a lot but I think I pretty much chose the default options. Going through them, it gives you the option to scale the image either by specifying a size (I was able to use the paper size since it was a pdf converted to an image) or by picking points. Once it was imported, I started a sketch and just created a contour following the image below.
Ken Hale
User avatar
JuP
Major
Major
Posts: 169
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2014 5:45 pm
Answers: 6
TopSolid Module: TopSolid'Steel
TopSolid Version: 7.14

Re: Bring 2d Scanned shapes into TS?

Unread post by JuP »

Hello,

Use software like vextractor and import result in TopSolid (with dxf or dwg format). It's not free but with free version this software protection just add some colored logos that you can filter easily with TopSolid.

Hope it can help you
Julien POIROT
TopSolid'Steel Product Manager
Youtube
GrabCad
Facebook
Post Reply