Pasting a 3D Model on an Image

Any software that allows you to paste one image on top of another should do. It sounds like you have some form of CAD for the model. That program should do it...

Paste the image of the house, and measure where the awning will go (in pixels). If necessary, once you have the awning rotated and scaled correctly, you can do a partial screen capture (on a Mac, Shift-control-command-4 captures the selected part of the screen to the clipboard; I presume there is something similar on PCs). Then paste the awning over the house.

GA

If you have reasonable computer skills, this software is easy to learn and use... you can get going in an hour, and I would suggest if you are integrating your product in a detailed way, you can actually develop framing plans..etc.

other software that is very expensive and top of the heap is called Chief Architect, but the do sell a version through better homes and gardens that is similar to Punch. I have purchased both but not Chief as it is 3K$

If you have 3D viewing software for your models, you can rotate and use PrintScreen to capture a view, and then paste into Adobe Photoshop or Corel Photopaint, et al, and use transparency to allow the white background to disappear, leaving your image of your product overlaying the background of the house, so that was a good post by your other contributor. Both PS and PP have the ability to distort the overlaid image, so you can alter it slightly to account for issues in perspective that your 3d viewer may not have gotten perfect.

If you are doing this commercially, then I think Corel is more affordable than Photoshop, but I don't know all the capabilities of Adobe Elements, which might also be capable.

If you send me some samples, I can create an estimate of the difficulty involved. Whatever you wish, I am willing to help..

chrisg288@hotmail.com

use google sketchup 7

Google Sketchup - it's free so it can't break the bank.

Takes a couple of evenings to learn (if you're good on image software you'll have it working in 3 minutes) - it's by far the most user-friendly 3D image manipulator I've used.

There is a pro version you have to pay for - I actually don't think it costs much (not sure of current price), but watch that you are downloading the freebie as a trial, because they make it easy to download the pro version accidentally, which will stop working after the trial period.

Good luck.

Thank you all for your help, I'm working my way through SketchUp. As an engineer I tend to work on small components and I need to get a better understanding of prespective, especally the camera point of the photo. I'm not quite sure how to place the photo, sample attached.

Tony

Hi Tony,

Sorry I can't help you with Sketchup, but the principles shoud be the same.

First you orient your model in your 3d viewer, so it has something of the proper angle, like this.

What I usually do then is capture (print screen) then paste in paintbrush, and crop. like this

then I open both images in photoshop.

and with the awning image, I use the 'magic wand' and the shift key to multi-select the white areas.

and then select Selection|Inverse

now you have just the awning selected without the background white. So now select Edit|Copy, then switch over to the image of the house and paste.

the awning is now on a separate layer in photoshop. You will notice you can drag it around. Now select Edit|Transform|Scale, and use the handles to adjust the size and shape to fit around the window. If you drag in the center of the awning, you can relocate it.

Then select Edit|Transform|Perspective, and you can give the final tweaks to fit. I pasted the right window first.

When it is in place, right click on the Layer1 in the layers swatch, and select Duplicate Layer. Then drag the new layer image over to the left window, and repeat the scale and perspective adjustments for that image.

When done, save (psd) and save as. (jpg)

I would not flatten the image as your customer may want improvements or changes.

final product.

good luck,

Chris

Thanks for your time Chris. The result looks good.

Assuming the sides of your awning are at 90°, then the bottom needs to follow a line projected along the side wall. So perhaps I need to draw a box first and use that as a guide.

FYI, its also kind of expected/hoped for around here that if someone gives you a pleasing response and that response is useful for everyone, that you will give it a rating by pressing the 'Rate' button.

Chris

I don't really undesrtand the purpose... I guess you are saying my 'perspective' is off slightly. (it was just a demo ) good eye though. I'll think about that one. In photoshop, you can create lines overlaying the image, and they are a separate layer, so then when you paste the awning, you would have that as a guide. I'm not a PS wiz or anything.. there may be something built in to PS called 'guides'.. not sure.

I make extensive use of books, help files, and the internet when I work.. nobody can remember it all.

Chris

Hi Chris

As I said, the result looks good and I am very grateful for your time. The comment about the prospective was me, trying to understand what I should be doing to get more realism not a criticism of your excellent work.

On my first attempt, the awning prospective was way out and looked very unrealistic. I need to establish the "camera" position on the photo first, in order to get that correct and may have to use a different software. I think ShetchUp may be the answer and am learning it currently.

I'll post my attempts, thanks again.

Tony

Regards

There was an IPhone program in 1996s' IPhone 4.0 Ver [Ithink] later was upgraded.

In this program was a "Whiteboard" real name [Conference or Inconference] as a stand Alone, by VocalTec Ltd, USA.

It had all the fcillities of pasting as many images as you can save file format was .cfr

I have not seen any such capable appeltte after this.

Try to vontact them if they exist now.

No pasting but draging on or dragging off