Computer Design /Drawing question

[Son of a Steelman]

Hi,
I am of an age now where computers are a bit of mystery to me, but I do like a "fiddle" to keep the mind going.

I have a question that I expect will be easy peasy for you all, and one, when answered, that will let me sleep peacefully.

I have noticed a lot of images on the internet where say a railing design for instance, has been drawn in quite good detail, then placed over a slightly faded image of a house in the background. On other occasions it is gates drawn then "fitted" to pillars,(flowers all around) again with a nice house faded in the background. I have also seen railings drawn and placed upon brick effect walls

I am wondering how do they draw /superimpose to achieve this effect?

Thanks

 

[mike 109444]

Hi Son of Steelman. Though someone might have answered this by now. Think you will find they are created using the "layer" function in various art / photo editing programs. Never neded to use this feture myself so not sure how. Try downloading a program called "GIMP" It's quite a feature packed program and you may find there is a help or user manual with the program. It is a free download program so cheep to try!

 

[Son of a Steelman]

Thnks Mike


I am pleased someone came to my rescue as I hate puzzles that wont go away. I am sure you know what I mean

I will take your advice and download the prog you suggest and have a little "play" with it.

All keeps the mind active

Cheers mate

Gerry

 

[rkde]

While I sit at a computer doing this sort of thing all day I see that the trend of overlaying images in its most basic form is being done with google sketchup and is then being overlaid in something like photoshop / gimp.

I use gimp quite often as a basic layer package and its very good but there is also quite a lot to learn

To do this in gimp you need to set the one layer (the house) to have more layer transparency and then the next layer with the fence gate etc needs to be at 100% transparency. Normally the fence would come from a 3D CAD type package but it can be a free job like sketch up as packages like solidworks for example are too expensive to achieve this unless you want it for technical drawings too.
Over the years I have grown to like using solidworks and use it nearly everyday. I do every so often go back to the others but most of the work I do now demands solidworks which is fine by me

 

[Son of a Steelman]

Hi RKDE

Many thanks for your kind advice on the subject of overlaying railings over house photo. It certainly seems to be a lot more complicated than I first thought. I now realise some of those graphics guys in my younger days must have been worth their weight in gold!

I have been a little distracted since Mike answered my initial query so have moved no further, but now I have some free time I will download this Gimp Prog and have a go.

Your explanation of the processshould hopefully help me a long way to producing one reasonably acceptable "shot" of a gate aperture with a gate design installed (although I will have to borrow a gate from somewhere as I cant use autocad as yet. (perhaps this is a case of cart before the horses? I will find out as I go)

Many thanks for your solid guidance on the subject
Gerry

 

[Dev]

You can do the same thing in sketchup alone, there are a lot of video tutorials on how to use sketchup which you can follow along at your own pace.

 

[Son of a Steelman]

Many thanks Dev

Ahhh, not sure which way to go now. I can borrow Sketch up Pro from my nephew and try that.

When you say "it can be done in Sketch Up", do you mean the whole process to the finished impression?

 

[Dev]

You can download a free version of sketchup. You should be able to import a picture and draw on it.