Distort a region in AutoCAD

[BrianDroy5657]

Hi there.

(please see attached)

I want to take a regioned item depicting an owl design then squeeze and stretch it to produce an owl with a deliberately distorted silhouette which will then be projected at an angle onto a wall. The actual dimensions are not important, its the process I trying to figure out....Any ideas?

Thanks

Bazza

@BrianDroy5657, 
john.vellek has edited your subject line for clarity:I want to disport a regioned design. See visual aid.

[tramber]

In 2000, I already flatened things with FBX or FXB (can't even remember) techniques from paperspace.

Printing 2D dwf before importing was probably another way, I remember that I use to consider them as equivalent.

Nowadays, paperspaces are exportable but it is a wrong technique (objects keeping on being 3D).

I'm not new to that field. And I didn't paied for 2017, I'm still on 2016 !

But Flatshot is not only issued, if you say so, it's poor too

[elshawadfy]

Hi @tramber 🙂

- Exporting to FBX exports objects in 3d.. and I don't think it has been arround that long..

- Plotting to dxb plotter will produce a flattened image, but I don't think it can ge reimpoted to AutoCAD..

- Exporting or plotting to WMF produces a flattened perspective that can be reimported to autocad, but ignores hidden lines (shows all lines even hidden ones)

That's why I said exporting to pdf may be the safest bet.. even if you can't reimport geometries to AutoCAD because you're still on 2016 (like me 🙂 ) you can still Xref the pdf and have it as an underlay that can be retraced, or use 3rd party software to export it to dxf or dwg......

[tramber]

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@elshawadfy wrote:

- Plotting to dxb plotter will produce a flattened image, but I don't think it can ge reimpoted to AutoCAD..

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It could be reimported, I remember with little doubt. It is far and we are all getting so old

Ok for PDF technique. sounds obvious to us, old users, that it must work !

I didn't talk about WMF but flatten DWF. Well, doesn't matter. Once the 2D DWF opened, it had to be copy-paste into Acad objets.

(My autodesk-equiped computer don't even know what is a dwf now. Funny. Jst tried to open something old !)

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Plotting to dxb plotter [...]

>> It could be reimported

Command _DXBIN 😉

- alfred -

[elshawadfy]

Hi @Alfred.NESWADBA,

Glad you passed by 🙂

I tried dxbin before posting the previous post, but it didn't import, it gave the dialog box and every thing, but I didn't see any thing imported in the drawing, that's why I said that I doughted it could be reimported.. Now that you mentionened it again, I tried importing to a new file, then zoom extents, It turns out the drawing was imported alright, but very small at the origin..

Thank you very much Alfred 🙂

-- Sadly though, the dxb plotter plotted the hidden lines no matter what I did. 😞 .. (I tried hide command, ahidden visual style, plotting from the layout....)

[SEANT61]

This file compares the resultant geometry between a Flatshot and a DXBOUT/DXBIN.  I think flatshot is the way to go.  I'm still trying to get a PDF example to work.

The plots were all done in AutoCAD 2017.

[tramber]

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 I think flatshot is the way to go.

---

In French, we say that : "il n'y a pas photo" !

It means that there is no need to take a photo to declare who won !

Nice Model.

[elshawadfy]

Hello @SEANT61, hello everyone,

First - the model looks really great 🙂

I'm curious about the dxb printed model, as I see - hidden lines are not shown, so what settings did you use to plot? and did you plot it from a 3d model or a 2d one? - What version of AutoCAD are you using?

And as you said, "Flatshot" wins here, especially since it retains curves, while dxb plot converts them to little segments depending on the resolution used, but still - Flatshot has it's major essues with perspectives I'm afraid, although they don't appear here..

Thank you very much for sharing your trial 🙂

[SEANT61]

I had a Papaerspace layout with DXB plotter setup. The Viewport had a Shade Plot setting of "Legacy Hidden".  As output, I think the DXB file is intended as a map for a pen plotter driver.  If examined closely, many of the line intersection has extraneous geometry.

I was able to get a layout to ExportPDF - PdfImport, but it too had the messy intersections.

I also remember that thread about the Flatshot bug, but the OP, nor other responders, ever posted a file that wasn't eventually corrected by the use of a different scale.  I don't doubt that there are things that will disrupt Flatshot, but there may be mitigating procedures.  Do you have a setup that flatshot will not handle?

[elshawadfy]

Thank you very much for your reply @SEANT61...

It was as you said, it turns out I was setting the visual style inside the viewport to hiiden, but left the plotstyle "As Displayed"... As soon as i turned it to "Legacy Hidden" every thing went fine.. THANK YOU 🙂

As for flat shot, sometimes it causes problems, the last I've seen was in a thread here in the community, and as it turns out he needed to scale the entire model down to have it work properly, altough the original model was reasonable in size (metric millimiters: about 17000mm (17m).. It seems that when the command was created they took into conscderation imperial units only or something, so they were expecting to deal with smaller numbers..

Finally, this conversation was really useful, and I'm glad I took part in it..

Best of luck 🙂

[steve.forrestJT2ZV]

Hi @elshawadfy & @BrianDroy5657,

I have a similar design that I am trying to warp - Although mine is a cut-out pattern with many lines.

I tried to follow your steps, but it would not let me convert to surface (2,886 objects can no be converted).

Is there a work around?

I have an equilateral triangle with a pattern within.

My hope is to warp / distort the triangle to fit into a random shape / sized triangle.

Any  help  would be really appreciated!

Cheers