How to make drawings with CAD

[krazyderek]

Ok so i have a couple big pics of guitars i made and some from the net i want to make drawings off, so i creat a vector layer in Paint shop and use the Beizen curve to make a black outline of the guitar, carvings, pickups.. etc, then i take the layer off and save it as another pic, a transparent backround with the black lines tracing the guitar.

QUESTION : So how do i import that pic into Turbo Cad 2 and make it the correct size, i know i have to use some reference like the frets to make the pic the right size, but how??? Is there an easier program to do this with? Should i be importing the original picture of the guitar into CAD instead of doing some of the work in paint shop?

[Guest AlexVDL]

I usually import a pic into Autocad... the pic need to be photographed exactly from the front, otherwise it will be off.

I use the spline option to trace the outlines.. with the spline option you just have to click a few points on the outer contour and it will draw a smooth line thru it... (only works with roundings and curves).

If you have a pic of the whole guitar, you could measure the distance between the nut and the 12th fret (half scale length) to calculate how much you're off to the original size. After that you can resize it.

If you have a pic of only the body and you still can see the 12th fret, then I draw a line parrallel to the 12th fret right over the bridge area. I take the placement of the lower E-string and add up 2 mm. Now measure the distance between that line and the 12th fret. That should be half a scale length. Now you can calculate it again to properly resize it.

Pickup routs etc I draw from templates or blueprints. All humbuckers and single coils have the same size, so they would work on any guitar body.

I hope this helps for you.

[Bingo328]

Alex is exactly right about needing a front view of the guitar. if it is at a slight angle the part of the pic closer to you will end up bigger in your drawing. As long as you scale up by a known measurement you should be fine. One thing I think works best is to import your pic into cad first and don't scale it up. the more you try to change the pic and scale it up the easier it is to get things out of proportion if your not careful. my advice would be to draw everything in CAD the first time as accurately as possible, scale it up by a know dimension, then check the crucial measurements like the bridge and neck pocket and change them to what they need to be if they're not exact. Also it would do you wonders to try and get a version of AutoCAD. It is twice as easy as TurboCAD and you can do a lot more. Check with anyone you know who might use cad and see if they can burn you a copy. If all else fails, places like staples and office depot usually carry AutoCAD Lite. It is AutoCAD without a lot of the specialized functions and without 3D abilities. It would be 10 times more than you need to draw templates and its about a quarter of the price of the full version. I have a home based version I got through my work, I'll check and see if I would be legally allowed to send you a copy, if so I'll send you one if you pick up shipping. Let me know if you have ?'s

[rsera]

if you have a good internet connection you could D/L autocad 2004 off MIRC

[krazyderek]

i do