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#31
08-25-2010, 02:28 PM
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 Power Point?That's not a graphics program... That's a slide presentation program! How on earth do you get graphics out of Power Point? Nevermind... I would recommend finding a really cheap obsolete version of a recognized, available graphics program such as Paint Shop Pro 8, or Photoshop 6 or 7 (both available on eBay for around $15 at last glance) and doing your graphics work there. If you work at a resolution of 300DPI, you can use a canvas size of 2250 wide by 3000 high, and save it as a GIF file. Use PDFill to convert that to a PDF, and you're in business. The default margins in PDFill are 0.5" wide, and at 300DPI, you have a 7.5" x 10" sheet to work in, so you don't have to enlarge to fit, and can maintain scale with an output sheet that is perfectly letter sized. I'm doing a post-WWII Battleship this way, and it's been literally a piece of cake to edit and revise my PDF parts sheets. I haven't the first clue how to go about using Power Point for anything other than creating simple slideshows... In fact, I didn't even know you could use it to do graphics. 
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#32
08-25-2010, 02:57 PM
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Mike, could I ask what version of Office/Powerpoint you have, and what method you're using to produce PDFs? My work computer has Powerpoint 2007 and it appears to be able to export PDFs natively. It also seems to preserve the vector information in the shapes, as I can zoom in as much as I want without losing any detail (at least when I tried drawing a circle and making a PDF of if). I don't remember seeing native PDF export functionality in older versions of Powerpoint, though, so if you're using one of those older versions maybe you're out of luck.
I know there are "virtual printers" that produce PDFs (CutePDF Writer is one) but I don't know how much control you have over vector info or resolution. Another thing maybe worth investigating is OpenOffice.org which is a free/open source office suite that's mostly-but-not-always-100% compatible with MS Office. I think it has the ability to export as PDF, but I haven't tried to do so. I'm not sure if it would open your current Powerpoint files and display them correctly though. If you would be willing to send me one of your Powerpoint files, I could try messing around with some of these programs and see if I can find anything that works. And Lancer...yes, I'd like to try some Soviet/Russian launchers when I'm done with the US ones. I wasn't planning on doing an N-1, though, since I was thinking of limiting myself to launchers that have actually successfully flown manned (might reconsider this later). I would do at least a Vostok and a Soyuz; I don't know if I'll build a Voskhod, since it's basically just a taller Vostok...
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#33
08-25-2010, 09:18 PM
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Back in the Triassic
Quote:
Yogi (just because it's a flint knife doesn't mean it's not sharp)
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#34
08-26-2010, 09:46 AM
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Quote:
To piggyback what Yogi was saying, you'd be amazed what you can do with PowerPoint when you put your mind to it. I'm sure there are things that Photoshop & other graphics programs can do that would blow PP out of the water, but when I started designing things a few years ago, it was all I really had available to me. Jon Leslie talks about in his website the ability to draw basic shapes in Word. I took that, and realized I could do the same thing and more with PowerPoint. And most of the shapes you need for rockets are really pretty simple geometric shapes, which it does well. The more I played with it, the more I "invented" things by necessity to acheive what I wanted, and I got pretty darn good at it, if I say so myself. I do copy and past things from other places and I use Paint to do others, and past them in, but I find a way. There are a few things I can't do, but mostly I can do whatever I want. And as I've been whining, the only problem I have now is the file size and the loss of resolution when going to .pdf. I'm confident I'll crack that nut at some point.
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#35
08-26-2010, 10:23 AM
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Wee, don't take what I said the wrong way... I certainly wasn't bashing your methodology, just expressing my extreme disbelief at how it could be utilized that way... If it works for you, by all means, don't reinvent the wheel!
What I was suggesting, however, is that within a dedicated graphics program like the two I mentioned, you can determine your scale size and resolution without having to think about it. It's merely a matter of setting your screen resolution, and knowing what final dimensions you need. It's already done for you by drafting it up that way. I can give you an example, but it will have to wait until later this evening when I get home from work. I drew up a really tiny item, and it translated to PDF with no loss of resolution, to the point that I could hardly see the lines they were drawn so fine. Of course, showing you the pictures will blow the secret, but what the heck... It is a really tiny scale version of something huge, so it might work on this thread... I will post when I get home to show you.
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#36
08-26-2010, 01:19 PM
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lancer,
I understood exactly what you meant -- no worries, there, my friend! I hope I didn't come across as defensive -- that's the last thing I intended. I appreciate your input. I have no doubt what you're talking about would be a much more flexable tool than PowerPoint. It's great for some things, not so much with others, which forced me to adapt, as I mentioned. Perhaps one of these days I'll check out some of the software you're talking about. If it makes my life easier, I'm all for it. I look forward to seeing your work.
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#37
08-26-2010, 04:29 PM
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Heh... I'm all for making things easier myself...
As promised, here's some shots of what I've been working on. This is a 1/200 scale Montana-class Battleship. 921 feet long, so it works out to a hair under 60" to scale. First, here's a shot of the hull from my 3-D program.  Here's a couple of the sections of beta hull in progress at full scale. They haven't been joined together yet, and there's yet a third section under construction. It hasn't been added to the other two yet. The whole model is a bit short of 60" long   And for the weirdness, here's a microscopic scale view of the hull of the same ship, about 4" long... 1/2500 scale. So far, all I have is the first citadel deck, and the four main battery turrets. 18"/48 naval rifles at 1/2500 are really tiny. I think they worked out to 0.344" long. So, at 1/2500 scale they're really 0.0071"/48 guns... Hee hee hee... :D  I don't know what possessed me to do this. I think it was your tiny little Redstone. Yeah, that's right, it's YOUR fault! Here's a view, full size, of the image that I drew in Paint Shop Pro, and sent to PD Fill:  And lastly, as an attachment, is the PDF made from PDFill. This is incomplete, as I've not finished drawing up the very tiny parts of the rest of the superstructure. I hadn't really planned to show this to anyone, or to ever release it, but it seems like the right thing to do in this thread to show the capabilities of the software, even if I never do the superstructure and finish the microscopic scale ship. Which I might do and release as a kit. Who knows?  Note, I changed the file format of the last picture from GIF to JPG, so there's bound to be a little antialiasing... All this work was edited (after the parts were created by other software) in Paint Shop Pro, and converted to PDF in PDFill. Best two pieces of software I never paid for that I've ever used... You'll have to let me know what you think.  Oh, and if you want to see a model purely done by me in Paint Shop Pro and PDFill, here is Jupiter 130/246 that I did for the 2009 International Space Development Conference... LINK
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#38
08-27-2010, 08:43 AM
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Lancer - 60 inches, huh? That'll take up a good amount of shelf space...
Your PDF looks good, but have you considered trying a vector drawing program like Illustrator or Inkscape (free)? That would allow you to scale things as much as you wanted without them becoming pixelated/blocky.
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#40
08-27-2010, 10:10 AM
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Kevin: That's a great idea! I have often wanted to get into vector graphics, but have just never had the time. I can do some vector graphics within PSP and Photoshop, but I've never really investigated going further with it. Now I just might! Then again, given that I run my cut-lines at 1 pixel wide, that works out to 1/300 of an inch on the paper, and takes some serious magnification to even see pixellation... Hee hee he...
Wee, I might just do that. Once I figure out the superstructure of the big one, which I haven't even started yet, I will have a better handle on how to shrink it up that tiny. 1/2500 is pretty small...
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