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wvrr
Fireman
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 Posted - 03/15/2010 : 9:46:16 PM
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Over the last 9 months, I have been playing with a vector graphics program called Inkscape. Inkscape is freeware that is similar to Illustrator and CorelDraw.
The nice thing about vector graphics is that your drawings are not made up of lines, but rather nodes (points on the drawing) that are connected by paths (lines on the drawing). So, as you expand or contract an image, it will not get "bit-mappy" on you like a JPEG file will.
So, I thought I would post some of the things I have learned about the program. You may find it useful for making signs for your own model railroads.
I will warn you, though, there is a learning curve if you aren't used to drawing things on the PC. I will try to present a simple "how-to" with each post. And, I don't profess to be an expert at it, myself. Rather, I think this is a cool program that you can use after only mastering a few of the the tools.
But, for today, I will just post the website for the software in case anyone wishes to look it over, download it, or ignore it .
http://www.inkscape.org/
Chuck
Wyoming Valley Railroad
http://sites.google.com/site/wvrails/
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Wyoming Valley Railroad
http://sites.google.com/site/wvrails/ |
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MikeC
Administrator
Premium Member
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Posted - 03/15/2010 : 10:24:32 PM
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Thanks for the link, Chuck. I was about to ask if this program could be run on a Mac, but I saw the link first. Unfortunately, there is not a Mac version available. 
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Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm a busy man. I have a railroad to run.
Visit the Central Missouri & Southern
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Country: USA
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HW
Engine Wiper
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Posted - 03/15/2010 : 10:57:09 PM
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It lists the following on the download page:
Mac OS X
OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard – Universal .dmg
OS X 10.5, Leopard – Universal .dmg (Please first upgrade X11.app to at least XQuartz v2.1.4.)
OS X 10.4, Tiger – PPC .dmg (requires Apple's X11 v1.1.3)
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Country: Canada
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PaulD
Crew Chief
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Posted - 03/16/2010 : 12:31:28 AM
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Chuck,
Thanks for the link, it is indeed a nifty little program. I now have it running on my Mac Pro using leopard 10.
I have used Autocad on Microsoft based garbage professionally for 27 years and was able to just jump right in. The import function is a blast as I have many Jpeg and PDF files I would like to convert to vector graphics. It imported them easily. I will be eventually buying Turbocad for my Mac but this nifty little program will do nicely in the interim.
Mike you have to scroll down to the part on the homepage where it lists Mac operating systems.
I have also been using Sketchup from google but it is a bit clunky for 3D work. Though worth having a look at as well being Freeware.
Thanks again.
Dunny
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Country: Australia
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wvrr
Fireman
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Posted - 03/16/2010 : 11:08:30 PM
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Dunny,
I know what you mean about the import feature. I rarely create a drawing from scratch. I plan to show how to use the feature in this thread. I didn't get a chance to put something together, tonight. I wanted to show how I built one logo I plan to use...a basic thing, but it demonstrates some of the fundamentals. Then, I wanted to show something a little more advanced using the import function.
Glad to hear there are versions that work on the Mac. Hopefully, MikeC sees this and takes advantage of it.
Chuck
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Wyoming Valley Railroad
http://sites.google.com/site/wvrails/ |
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MikeC
Administrator
Premium Member
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Posted - 03/16/2010 : 11:25:43 PM
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Thanks, guys. Yes, I did see it.. today. I was looking at the system requirements last evening and saw only info concerning the Windows version. 
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Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm a busy man. I have a railroad to run.
Visit the Central Missouri & Southern
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Country: USA
| Posts: 21584 |
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chrismears
Section Hand
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Posted - 03/17/2010 : 12:49:59 PM
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I use Inkscape for some graphic design work I've done. It's a really powerful tool with some nice editing tools built in. I'll confess I'd never really considered it for actual modelmaking and I'm looking forward to reading about how you're adapting it.
Thanks
/chris
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Chris Mears
Charlottetown, PEI
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Pigeons Inlet Railway & Navigation Company blog:
http://princestreet.wordpress.com |
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Country: Canada
| Posts: 61 |
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wvrr
Fireman
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Posted - 03/18/2010 : 12:01:22 AM
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Chris,
For modeling, I will be using it for making signs. Up to now, I have used it to produce logos, cartoons, and layout plans for the NMRA newsletter I edit.
What I plan to do is start with something simple as a tutorial. I have a model railroad friend who is very much into the milk industry, and his last name is Wehr. He showed me a milk bottle he has in his collection with a "Wehr Dairy" logo. So, I thought I would reproduce the logo for a creamery that I plan to build for my model railroad. First of all, here is a closeup of the milk bottle:
At first, you think it is a simple affair. Just find the font and draw some lines and stars. The thing is, you can find a font that is close, but not exactly it. Inkscape allows you to convert the text into objects, and you can edit them to create your own "fonts".
For example, I found that the Britannic Bold font on my PC had a very close resemblance to the font on the bottle.
But, I had to tweak nearly every character to match the bottle. Note how the middle point on the W extends beyond the intersection. The middle bar on the E is raised and extends beyond the left hand side. The middle bar on the H is higher. The R required the most work. The D has a curve on the inside of the vertical bar. And, the A's bar also extends beyond the left hand side. All of these changes were made in Inkscape.
Then, I was able to play around with different colors, once I had the basic logo built.
Chuck
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Wyoming Valley Railroad
http://sites.google.com/site/wvrails/ |
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PaulD
Crew Chief
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Posted - 03/18/2010 : 02:01:05 AM
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Chuck,
Nice work on the logo. How did you get Inkscape to curve the Text?
Dunny
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Country: Australia
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slimrails
Moderator
Premium Member
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Posted - 03/18/2010 : 06:09:33 AM
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Hello, Chuck...
I replaced my old drawing program with it and used it to come up with the speed lettering portion of my herald. This will be used on loco tenders and on the left side of boxcars. Works fine...thanks for the link!!
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Take a look at my vintage railroad postcard collection at http://www.railroadpostcards.blogspot.com
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Country: USA
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wvrr
Fireman
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Posted - 03/18/2010 : 07:16:06 AM
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That looks great, Russ!
Dunny, I'll cover curving the text, too. That is a good topic to cover, especially since I show the text curved both ways.
Chuck
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Wyoming Valley Railroad
http://sites.google.com/site/wvrails/ |
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Rick
Administrator
Premium Member
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Posted - 03/18/2010 : 07:28:14 AM
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Chuck, thanks for doing this tutorial.
I'm sure I'll have a need for it at some point.
Matter of fact I need a sign for a bakery I built last year.
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Frederic Testard
Engineer
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Posted - 03/18/2010 : 6:41:39 PM
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I downloaded it yesterday and tried it for about an hour. The program clearly has lots of potentialities, and learning how to use the many tools is certainly an important but interesting work. I can imagine nice logos being made with it.
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| Frederic Testard |
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Country: France
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wvrr
Fireman
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Posted - 03/19/2010 : 09:13:32 AM
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Nodes and Node Handles
This lesson is to take you through drawing one line. But, more important than the line is the nodes at either end of the line. So, let's draw a line using the left toolbar.
Click on the button to draw Bezier curves.
On the canvas, click once with the left mouse button, drag the mouse, and then click a second time.
Now, click on one of the nodes at either end of the line. A node marks the endpoint of a line segment. Then, holding your shift key down, click on the other node. Both nodes for the line segment should be highlighted.
Now, let's zoom in to see what we are doing. Look at the main toolbar.
Since you have highlighted two nodes, that is your selection. To zoom in to maximize what you have selected on the screen, click on the "Zoom to Fit" button.
Now, we want to start editing the line. To do that, you need a different toolbar. On the toolbar to the left, click on "Edit Paths by Node".
Notice the new toolbar at the top.
Let's split the line in two by adding a node in the middle. When you click on this button, Inkscape will automatically place the node in the midpoint. After it is added, you can click on the node and move it to wherever you want on that line.
So, click on "Add New Nodes".
Now you will have a line with three nodes. It is actually two lines, with a node shared by the two lines.
Click on the middle node so that it is the only one highlighted. Note the difference in how the two end nodes appear in the image above vs. the image below.
Now, let's look at how we can modify the behavior of this node. This is the part that many people have difficulty with as a concept. Think of it this way: What you have drawn are nodes connected by a line. Now, we are going to modify the behavior of the node, which has an impact on the lines. This is the heart of vector graphics. You are not drawing lines. instead, you are creating nodes and defining their behavior, so as you expand or compress the vector graphic, it doesn't get bit-mappy on you. That is because you really didn't draw lines, as you do with other drawing programs.
So, we are going to look at these three buttons:
The first button makes the lines that join at this node, corner. So, you can have a sharp point for the two lines that join at this node. To demonstrate, click on this button.
Then, click on the middle node and drag it up or down.
Now, click on the second button to smooth it out.
What will happen is the sharp corner gets converted to a curve. Think of it as a transition curve in track plans. It is making a smooth curve from the two end nodes through the middle node. The other thing you will have noticed is that Inkscape created two "Node Handles".
You can grab the end of either of these handles and move it in any direction. Note how the length of the node handle dictates what happens to the line.
Now, let's make the node handles symmetric. Click on the next button on the toolbar.
What Inkscape did is placed the node at the midpoint of both node handles.
You may wonder why the curves aren't symmetric, however. Study the position of all three nodes. They are not in alignment. So, I moved the middle node so that it is at the midpoint between the two end nodes. I drew a red line to demonstrate the point.
But, look what happens to the curves if I slide the middle node along the red line. The curves are no longer identical.
Now, let's have a little more fun by converting the middle node to a corner node, again. Click on the corner button, again.
Now, the node handles will move, independently.
To make a straight line, move the node handle until it is in alignment with the next node. In this image, the node handle is highlighted in red.
And, if at any time you are unhappy with the results, click on the "Undo" button in the main toolbar.
One final comment. When you are drawing or tracing a drawing (which will be covered, later) you may be tempted to draw a line with multiple nodes along the curve. You do not need to do that. All you really need to do is draw a line that connects the ends of the curve. Then, using the features I demonstrated, you can curve that line to conform to the drawing you are tracing or trying to make, freehand. If you insert many nodes along that curve, you may end up with a curve that is not very smooth. This will only magnify if you expand the final drawing prior to printing.
Chuck
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Wyoming Valley Railroad
http://sites.google.com/site/wvrails/ |
Edited by - wvrr on 03/19/2010 1:43:16 PM |
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wvrr
Fireman
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Posted - 03/19/2010 : 2:26:38 PM
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Order and Layers
This next discussion will cover the order of objects and the layers they are in. When you first start with a blank canvas, it only has one layer to it. And, when you place objects on that layer, you may find that some objects need to be above or below another object in your drawing. When you don't have too many objects, it is easy to manage with the "Order" functionality.
But, what is a layer? A layer contains a group of objects. And, an object can only be in one layer. You can reorder the objects in a layer. But, you can also reorder the layers. The big benefit of layers is that you can give them a label. Often, it is difficult to see the order of objects in a layer. But, you can see the order of layers! let me show you what I mean.
Click on the select button on the toolbar to the left.
A toolbar will appear at the top of the Inkscape screen. The buttons that are highlighted are for rearranging the order of objects in a layer.
Ordering objects can also be performed thru a drop down menu.
Let's take this imge, which consists of five objects.
If I needed to insert a line so that it passes over the green square, but under the cube, you will need to change the order of those objects after drawing the line. But, before drawing the line, can you tell which objects are higher in the order from the others? All you can tell is that the star is on the bottom, and the circle is above that. The remaining three objects are above the circle, but you don't know in which order since they do not come into contact with each other.
Now, open up the Layers menu.
Click on "Layers".
Now, you can see I created a layer for each object. And, you can tell the order of the objects, showing the star on the bottom and the spiral on the top. To rearrange the order, it is as simple as using the middle four arrow buttons to raise to the top, raise one layer, lower one layer, or lower to the bottom.
And, if you need to add a layer, just click on the button on the left.
A dialog will open up asking you to give the new layer a name, and if to place the new layer above or below the existing layer.
And, you can cut or copy objects from one layer and add paste them in another. The only thing you need to do is make sure you are on the layer you want to paste it to and then click somewhere on the canvas where you want to paste it.
The other nice thing with layers is that you can make an entire layer visible, or invisible. This is a feature I typically use when importing an image, which will be covered later. But, these buttons do exactly what you would expect them to do. If I click on the "eye" next to the green square layer, the green square will disappear from the canvas. The object still exists, it just is not visible.
The button next to the "eye" locks and unlocks a layer. I typically only have my active layer unlocked. This prevents me from moving, changing, deleting, and object on another layer.
So, when you understand the advantages of layers, you can see how they may have more of an advantage to use vs. placing all of your objects in one layer. That isn't to say I recommend placing only one object in each layer. I am just saying to use some judgement when placing objects into one layer vs. multiple layers.
For example, when I drew this trackplan for an issue of the newsletter, I had the following layers:
And, that covers rearranging objects in a layer and rearranging layers!
Chuck
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Wyoming Valley Railroad
http://sites.google.com/site/wvrails/ |
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MikeC
Administrator
Premium Member
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Posted - 03/19/2010 : 3:17:59 PM
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Chuck, this whole tutorial is really invaluable. I appreciate your taking the time to prepare the illustrations and text and post it all.  Once you are finished, I'll move a copy of the whole tutorial to the Classroom area.
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Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm a busy man. I have a railroad to run.
Visit the Central Missouri & Southern
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Country: USA
| Posts: 21584 |
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