Inkscape VW door panel photo trace example

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Andrew - you were asking about making door panels and we discussed options such as the Calcomp Digitizer board, flat bed scanners, Scanything template tracer, and more. Most of these are costly pieces of equipment to purchase. Here is what I was suggesting to you as an inexpensive alternative for scanning in larger parts like VW door panels. Inkscape or Design Edge will work for this.

You will basically be attaching your door panel template to the wall at an appropriate height such that your camera will be at the same height when taking your pictures. For my example, I am using a fairly simple template - but it could be a more complex shape and the result should be the same.

Here is the Inkscape procedure I used. It works pretty well and will get you pretty close. I would expect that after you cut your first panel, you might do some slight edits to the DXF file to tune it in to exactly what you need for a perfect fit.

Also - instead of cutting a test part first - I would suggest using a Sharpie pen holder attached to your torch and drawing the part on a clean piece of metal or paper, cardboard, or large dry erase board using the appropriate marking pen. Then edit your drawing as necessary before cutting your first part.

David

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Here is the svg file in case you want to check it out.

By the way, for a door panel this simple is might be easier to simply draw it using the reference dimensions. But let's say it is not just a simple rectangle and has lots of other features - curved sides, cutouts into the sides, etc. - then that might be harder to draw from scratch. The example process I show will work for many different shapes and configurations.


David

door panel manual trace from Inkscape.svg

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door panel manual trace from Inkscape.svg

(5.3 MiB) Downloaded 1 time

[plasmanewbie]

Thats pretty awesome David. Have done it in the past and found that the curvature in the camera lense would cause it to be traced inaccurately, is your 18' distance for the photo help to solve that issue using this technique?

[adbuch]

Thats pretty awesome David. Have done it in the past and found that the curvature in the camera lense would cause it to be traced inaccurately, is your 18' distance for the photo help to solve that issue using this technique?

Yes - the photo needs to be taken far enough away to eliminate most of the parallax. Too close and the picture will be distorted.

David