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Drawing Spiral Tree


LarryDrumAZ

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Mark that is a great job drawing the tree in the animation. I can not for the life of me figure out how to get it in my animation and keep the lines separate. Nicely done!

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timmy wrote:

Mark that is a great job drawing the tree in the animation. I can not for the life of me figure out how to get it in my animation and keep the lines separate. Nicely done!


Timmy, you could start by creating a very small grid (more squares per inch) in the visualizer. I used PhotoShop to place the line drawing; from page one, six posts down of this thread; on to a photo of my front yard and house. I imported that combo as a background photo in the visualizer. I zoomed in as far as possible when I actually did the tracing for the 16 Weber tree channels. I need to go back and change the channel color assignments to lighter shades as the darker grey colors are harder to see against the black background.

Glad you liked it.:P
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Thanks Mark, that never crossed my mind to add your drawing to my photo. That should make it a lot easier than free handing it. I hope I get a tree built for this year.

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jerryb721 wrote:

Here is a sequence file I made to help me do spirals.
It's 16 channels and has animation that show the spiral movements.
The tree is similar to the picture Mark S. posted above, but a not as tall since I made my spiral trees 7ft tall.
I think I posted one similar a while ago, but give it a look if you are interested.

Outstanding! :cool:
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That is really cool. Time to tweek my 25ft Webber tree I built last year. Hopefully S3 animator will be out before I sit down and draw this in S2!!

Thanks



KEN

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  • 4 weeks later...

jerryb721 wrote:

Here is a sequence file I made to help me do spirals.
It's 16 channels and has animation that show the spiral movements.
The tree is similar to the picture Mark S. posted above, but a not as tall since I made my spiral trees 7ft tall.
I think I posted one similar a while ago, but give it a look if you are interested.

I just completed an 8' spiral tree with 16 channels of red and green and the visualizer that Jerry posted is a perfect representation of what the real tree looks like. Thanks for sharing this.
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  • 2 weeks later...

tboerjan wrote:

Can one import lcc files over the top of your own? How exactly?



At this time there's no easy way to do that. I'm not even sure if there's a hard way to do it. The only way I know is to manually draw it in your existing lcc. That might change when the new visualizer becomes a reality though. For now you could always do like I do - create a sequence with just the spiral tree (I use ther one Jerry posted) program it there, and then copy those channels into what you already have.
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George Simmons wrote:

tboerjan wrote:
Can one import lcc files over the top of your own? How exactly?



At this time there's no easy way to do that. I'm not even sure if there's a hard way to do it. The only way I know is to manually draw it in your existing lcc. That might change when the new visualizer becomes a reality though. For now you could always do like I do - create a sequence with just the spiral tree (I use ther one Jerry posted) program it there, and then copy those channels into what you already have.

Actually I do just as George has suggested. Sequence the spiral and then copy it into the main sequence.
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  • 4 weeks later...

If you want to copy the details from one file to another it will need to be done by copying the code. It's a bit time consuming but possible. The attached file is a result of two additional files being merged into a primary master file.

Attached files 249892=13562-VisualJDS.jpg

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  • 3 months later...

Mark and others please help.
I saved the line drawing from post 6 and tried to use it as a background image but the grid always conforms to the line drawing. I'm trying to start with a large grid area and add the tree to one side of that. What am I missing?
Thanks

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KarlSmith wrote:

Mark and others please help.
I saved the line drawing from post 6 and tried to use it as a background image but the grid always conforms to the line drawing. I'm trying to start with a large grid area and add the tree to one side of that. What am I missing?
Thanks


Karl,

I'm not quite sure what you mean by the "grid always conforms to the line drawing"?

I'm not sure if this would work... what if I sent you my channel configuration? Does anyone know if there's any way to import and use the Weber tree channels as drawn in my visualizer in Karl's channel config?
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When you want your grid to be on a larger scale you may need to open the configuration file in a text editor and go thru the code. Be sure to save your file and rename it before messing with the code. If you read the code you will find the settings for the grid near the bottom. You can change it there, and save file. When you re-open the code should show the new values you entered. Be careful not to do much else unless you are used to working with code. There are some other ways to do this by importing a background image, but I do not use one and do not promote that method. Make sure you export the configuration to some name that you can recognize, and after you edit, another another name that you can then import. Save often, very often.

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Ok so I set the size of the grid to 150 rows X 200 cols and after I add image its always a different size. The exact size of the line drawing. I even resized the tree smaller then tried again, then I get a smaller version. Basicly the tree takes up the whole grid. I want the tree off to one side. Approx where it would be in the real world. Am I making any sense? My brain hurts.

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When the new software is released you will be able to import objects into a visual layout. Until that time I had to go to the spiral drawing that Jerry took the time to work up and print out the code with all of the individual pixel locations. My grid is like 600 wide and 450 high. I found the pixel location where I wanted to place the tree and made that a reference point. Say the top of the tree is going to be at row 20 and over 300 pixels from the left. I then had to add the offset values to all of the pixel locations in the original printout from Jerry's tree. It's not over yet. After finding all the new pixel locations (and I am doing this in a text editor) I copied the tree code lines and pasted this into my configuration. When I printed out the entire code for my configuration it was enough to fill a 3 inch binder. You may want to just wait until the new program is released if you are not savy at this process. Your head is going to swell a bit to get it all done and this late in the season program time is a bit precious. I keep both the side view of the two mega trees in my display, plus the original top view that I used for 3 years. There are times when I still get more benefit from seeing the top view to program. Even though I used three strands per channel in my mega trees in the visualizer I only use one strand to that I can keep the light count down to a reasonable level. 144 strands for one mega tree would be more than you would be able to differeniate in the visualizer, even if you project it onto a big screen TV.

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KarlSmith wrote:

Ok so I set the size of the grid to 150 rows X 200 cols and after I add image its always a different size. The exact size of the line drawing. I even resized the tree smaller then tried again, then I get a smaller version. Basicly the tree takes up the whole grid. I want the tree off to one side. Approx where it would be in the real world. Am I making any sense? My brain hurts.


Karl,

Can you tell me what side you want the tree on. I can recreate the tree graphic on a larger graphic that you could use for your background image.

Total size and position of the tree is all I need.
--
Mark
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WOW JD that's beyond me.


Mark,
I have no exact size in mind, but if we use a 2h x 3w rectangle as an example i would put the tree in the right third of the space.
Like so
__________________
l * l
l * * l
l * * l
l_____________*__ *l
House and other crap in other 2 thirds.
Currently trying to do this in something called gimp
No success.

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Hey Mark you must be a mind reader.
I just checked my email and what you included was EXACTLY what I was trying to do. Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

Now I will try to get it in the visualizer.

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Glad to help. If anyone needs it... here's a quick sketch of what a 12 channel Weber would look like.

If you use this please clean up all my uneven lines. I did this one at home with a mouse and not the WACOM tablet like I have at work. hmmmm... maybe a new tablet is needed for home???

Attached files 268127=14858-12 CHANNEL WEBER.jpg

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