Subject: SMML VOL 2200 Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 01:23:47 +1000 SMML is proudly sponsored by SANDLE http://sandlehobbies.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS INDEX 1: Re: CA 134 lines 2: International Festival of the Sea 3: What is the meaning of "N" 4: Re: Vectorization programs please 5: Re: Decommission & Stricken 6: Re: Mauretania 7: GMM 1/350 Essex set 8: CAD question 9: Re: Aleksander III 10: More CAD... 11: Do you remember.... 12: Re: Fibre Optics 13: Fiume camouflage 14: Re: converting scans using CAD 15: Contacting Abe Taubmann -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD INDEX 1: Camouflage Vol V ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: fsk-pdsi Subject: Re: CA 134 lines >> I'm having a really terrible time finding a set of hull sections or faired lines (other that wiswesser) for the Des Moines class cruisers. Floating Drydock has an excellent set of plans but no hull sections. I would appreciate any help from anyone out there. << Hi Ray: I've got a set I can send you. A couple of years ago while we were setting up for "SmellieCon 200" I reconstructed a set of lines of the De Moines class for John Frohock using the offsets and lines from a set of navy drawings. The forward stations are accurate, the aft stations are from a drawing 2 iterations before the final design. The only inacuracies for the rear half are the height of the second deck (only a problem if your building a cutaway model) and height of the knuckle line at the intersection of the underbody and transom. (apparently the BuShips draftsman messed up and drew it exacly 5 inches too high) All other stations are accurate. If you want a copy of these at 1/4" scale, I can send you a copy for free. However, since I drew these up in CAD, if you told me the scale youre building in,(and you ask reeeaaalll nice.. ;-)) I could plot the stations out individualy and in the scale your building in and in scale to be used as templates. You can Contact me at fsk-pdsi@nii.net Best Regards Fritz Koopman ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: NAS4853 Subject: International Festival of the Sea Readers The following site may be worth a visit or may be of interest to some http://www.festivalofthesea.co.uk/ Norman SELLS Tenterden, Kent. UK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From: URUDOFSKY Subject: What is the meaning of "N" A friend asked me about the meaning of the flag signal "N" at the top/start of the USN ship and aircraft ID's. I know we got some good info on K and W in radio call letters recently, but N is a mystery to me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From: SHIPMDLR Subject: Re: Vectorization programs please >> It is possible to scan any drawing and insert into CAD as a "raster image". You can use that as a guide to draw your plans on top of this image. There are also several vectorization programs, which could take these raster images and turn them into actual CAD lines. You can than edit and manipulate these lines in the CAD. << Sami, The problem is that scanners create TIF files for the most part. Not knowing too much about scanners, is it possible to get a raster image from a scanner? If so, please tell us some of the vectorization programs you're speaking of. I would like to purchase one to use with my CAD program. Contact me off board to keep this from turning into a computer geek session if you wish. I know that sort of thing gets old and off topic real fast. Rusty White - #20181 IPMS/USA Pres. Candidate ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) From: SCALSHPYRD Subject: Re: Decommission & Stricken The USS Kitty Hawk CV-63 has one or even both of the rudders from the Ranger. PSNS removed the rudders from Ranger while she was afloat, back in 1987, they used explosives to free them from the rudder post, divers had already attached all of the rigging so that the rudders could be lifted from the water once the dropped free. The Shipyard also cut about 36" diameter holes through all of the decks above including the flight deck to remove the post as well. No additional Damage was done to the ship in this process. When I was aboard in 1987 they had all of the antennas and spare equipment stored in the hanger. W.L. Upshaw The Scale Shipyard www.scaleshipyard.com Largest Selection of quality fiberglass model ship hulls. Now Accepting PayPal for in stock items ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) From: VONJERSEY Subject: Re: Mauretania To: Jim Chaconas I too would love to get a copy of the detail article on the Maretania I started the kit years ago but couldn't get past the need to install uprights connecting the decks ken ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) From: "Keith Bender" Subject: GMM 1/350 Essex set Hi SMMLies, I just received the Gold Medal Models photoetch for the 1:350 Essex class, both sets. Also the aircraft set along with the decal set. What a work of art they all are. I highly recomend them! KTB ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) From: "D.Przezdziecki" Subject: CAD question Many thanks to everybody who answered my question about CAD. Your input and advice is trurly appreciated. Now, to find the best metode that I can afford... :-) Sami Arim: what particular vectorization programs that turns raster images into CAD lines you had in mind??? Doug Wilde: I agree that CADs aren't the best tools for drawing ships and boats but they are all that I can lay my hands on right now. As as soon as I will win the lottery I am getting myself Rhinoceros!!! :-) Randy Ward: I do the cleaning up of scanned drawings often, problem is that all bitmaps editors are ok with straight lines but bad at diagonals and curves and my main interest, warships from 1890-1905 period, include more curves than straight lines. I am experimenting with CAD exactly because of that problem. Thanks again to everybody. Best wishes Darius ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) From: "D.Przezdziecki" Subject: Re: Aleksander III Pieter Cornelissen and all despite the fact that I am unwilling to put some of my references about Borodino sisters into public domain, if you or anybody else, has any specific questions concerning those ships please feel free to ask and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability. Darius ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) From: Ron Subject: More CAD... >> have a store here in OKC called Triangle A&E. They have a large format scanner made for such projects as you speak of. << I had forgotten that point, a large scanner. >> Have them scan it in as a TIF file. Then import the file into your CAD program if it can import TIFs. CAD programs aren't too friendly with TIF files because CAD creates and reads lines as distances between two points (in 2D CAD, three points in 3D CAD). TIF files are created as many tiny lines making up the whole line you see on paper. So your CAD program will snap to any one of the many points created by the TIF files. They are a bit of a pain to work with in CAD programs, but it can be done given enough time and effort. The result will be a very accurate drawing after a lot of clean up and drawing time. << It's easier to go the Corel Draw route to convert from raster to vector. Most affordable CAD programs these days don't import raster graphics easily or even accurately, Corell has functions to do just this and it works fairly well, better than most CAD programs I've seen. Files can be any bitmap format, .tif, .gif, .jpg, .pcx. bmp, .pct it doesn't matter. >> this would be most appreciated. I'm a LONG way from being an expert transposing scanned drawings to CAD, so please let me know if anyone here has had better success. << I do it fairly often for custom decals. I use Corel Draw to convert the scans to vector, use that as layer 0 in Autocad, draw accurate outlines and do precision placement of grouped items then export as a .dxf back to Corel Draw and do any scaling then fill with the appropriate colors. >> It is possible to scan any drawing and insert into CAD as a "raster image". You can use that as a guide to draw your plans on top of this image. There are also several vectorization programs, which could take these raster images and turn them into actual CAD lines. You can than edit and manipulate these lines in the CAD. << It's better and faster to do a simple convert to vector then draw accurate lines over that in another layer or layers. >> Regular 2D and 3D CAD programs are not up to the task of drawing boats and ships. Why? Because they do not include tools for assessing the fairness of curved lines. For that you a programs such as AUTOSHIP or MULTISURF. Both are expensive: $2,500-$3,500. I used Multisurf for three years and it is an incredible parametric CAD package with, shall we say, a steep learning curve. << Better is a high end professional 3-D setup like IDEAS but that runs $25-35K per license for a company. It will do this and lots of other things like render surfaces and solids from XYZ line art. Given enough time and processor power you could create a full motion, full length feature film, all accurately scaled. But this is overkill for a hobby application. A decent 2-D set of plans with all the internal structural members will let you physically fair a close enough curve with sheet once you start building. Sometimes you have to let the atrist get around the scientist or you get caught up in meaningless detail. >> I'm just learning CAD myself, but I seem to recall that Adobe PhotoShop has this ability. 'Can't remember if Adobe Illustrator has a similar capability. Adobe Streamline is supposed to take a scan and convert it into a vector-based drawing that can be edited, but in years of playing with it, I never could get the right settings. << None of the affordable software for home users does this well. Note that I do not consider the full version of Autocad affordable, AutocadLT is at the top end of affordable and only if you can justify it. >> When I get a bad drawing, I generally scan it as grayscale, then edit/clean it up in Paint Shop Pro. If you reduce the color palette to 256 colors, it's easy to clean up. << Corel Draw 8 with the included Corel Photo Paint will convert to B&W line art if the is sufficient contrast in the original. You can tweak what's in the original by converting to lower bit palettes but scanning at the lowest color range makes it easier. If working from line art to begin with, just scan as B&W line art and don't use any color palette or grayscale settings. >> Possible, yes. But extremely time consuming and tedious. Dimensions are not always 100% accurate due to many factors like original line width, original drawing accuracy, photocopy stretching, etc. A lot of larger corporations do this very thing, but they have massive amounts of computers and drawing techs working full time with original specs to go by. You'll have to find a decent sized scanner as well, or do it in pieces. << Use it as a layer and draw over it....just take a few reasonably accurate measurements from the original and use those lines to force everythig else right. You just have to make that a layer in a bright color and keep in the back of your mind that the layer sets your scale for everything else. >> There was a product by AutoCAD a few years back that tried to trace the original scan, didn't work very well. I don't know if they ever improved it. The actual process is pretty simple, scan the drawing and import it. Put it as a background layer and just start drawing. I do it all the time with CorelDraw. Have fun! << That autotrace never did work well. Corel's version is somewhat better but this kind of thing is their target market anyway. If you look on e-bay for Corel Draw you can find legal older versions going cheap. I got version 8 for $20 last year still in it's original packaging. For what we're talking about here, you don't need the lastest and greatest, bells & whistlesest version. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11) From: Keith Butterley Subject: Do you remember.... Hi group, Off topic, but semi-related. I have just spent the last 90 minutes locked in the den with assorted fumes, paint, thinner and others. Hello Steve Wiper Any ways as I was doing the paint thing with my hands, I was wandering down the empty corridors of my mind and stumbled across a couple of items for way back when. 50+ members should know what I am talking about. Remember the Johnny Horton song Sink the Bismarck? Ok there was a parody of it, I don't know who sang it and or what it was called, it went something like this (insert Horton tune) In May of 1942 or maybe 43 We were sailing with Captain Tuna The chicken of the sea We never sank the Bismarck No matter what they say Cuz when ever we saw a German ship We sailed the other way Anybody else remember this song and can provide some more info about it? The other thing, do you remember something called "Exploding Battleship". I believe it came with one of the popular cereals. Corn flakes or something. It consisted of a "submarine" that shot a "torpedo" and when it hit the "battleship" various parts flew off of it. At least that is how I remember it. My mother wouldn't relent and buy whatever it was that I needed to get it. I wonder if I can get one on ebay. Oh look! The unicorns are back. Happy modeling Keith Butterley http://www.warshipbooks.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12) From: "Mike Kear" Subject: Re: Fibre Optics The glass fibres used for data communications and telephone communications are useless for model purposes. The fibres are extremely fragile and are very small diameter. The light they produce is so small as to be of little use in simulating light bulbs on a model. You are far better to use the fibres designed for model applications. They are made of two kinds of plastic - one sheathing the other - and the diameters of the light-carrying fibres are much larger. They are between 0.75mm and 3mm in diameter so the lights seem far larger. Because they're plastic not glass, they're much more forgiving when you handle them (slightest over-bend in a glass fibre and it's broken, little or no light transmitted - mending broken glass fibres is next-to impossible without special tools) The plastic fibres can be handled and worked in models without a lot of hassle. I know where you can get usable quantities of this material in a variety of diameters, but for a number of reasons can't post the details here for a couple of months yet. In due course I'll ask Shane if its ok to post details on this list. If you can't wait till then, send me an email and I'll let you know more. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia Warship Models 72 www.modelwarship.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13) From: Stefano Subject: Fiume camouflage Hi Lars, and everybody. The correct 1941 RN Fiume camouflage is reported on the instructions of the 1/400 Fiume kit by Tauro, as these kits were originally produced under the supervision of the Italian Navy Historic Office. If you can provide an e-mail address I will send them. Regards, Stefano Sappino ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14) From: AAA Hobby Supply Subject: Re: converting scans using CAD >> Have them scan it in as a TIF file. Then import the file into your CAD program if it can import TIFs. CAD programs aren't too friendly with TIF files because CAD creates and reads lines as distances between two points (in 2D CAD, three points in 3D CAD). TIF files are created as many tiny lines making up the whole line you see on paper. So your CAD program will snap to any one of the many points created by the TIF files. They are a bit of a pain to work with in CAD programs, but it can be done given enough time and effort. The result will be a very accurate drawing after a lot of clean up and drawing time. << If you have them write it to a CD as something else, the cad program should handle it better. I never use TIF files, they're just too damned large. I used AutoCadR14 with Softdesk 8.5 (we have tried more modern versions and the entire office hates it!). In R14 you can insert a raster image (Tools>Insert Raster Image>Load, I think - but I when wrote our company menus, I added a button to do it automatically) and the program does not explode it into its component lines. At that point it is a simple matter to trace the drawing onto another layer. When finished simple "unload" the image file and the entire file gets to a really small size very quickly. Came in really handy at work when using aerial photogrpahy to establish surrounding boundary work that we did not have to certify to. James Corley Georgia Land Surveyor & Certified ACad Master ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15) From: Kurt Van DAhm Subject: Contacting Abe Taubmann Ed: Try Abe's phone at (201) 435-5205. I believe the web site you contacted was run by Tony Seuss and it is now out of business. Tony ran a sort of go between service for guys like Abe w/o web sites. Abe is a very Sr. citizen, but he delivers. Give him a try directly. Take care, Kurt Van Dahm Westmont, IL ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: WRPRESSINC Subject: Camouflage Vol V The fourth volume in the camouflage list of titles in the Warship Perspectives Series is now being run at the printers, and within two weeks deliveries will be made to dealers. 56 pages filled with camouflage designs and data including the design for the Prince of Wales at the time of loss in December 1941. Order now from your favourite dealer or on-line retailer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out the SMML site for the List Rules, Backissues, Member's models & reference pictures at: http://smmlonline.com Check out the APMA site for an index of ship articles in the Reference section at: http://apma.org.au/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of Volume