Modeling a LARGE 3D/Relief design in Aspire

[Chuck Keysor]

Hello Shopbot friends:

I have just started modeling a large Victorian relief carving for an old house. This panel is mounted right over the front stairs of a house, and is only 9 feet above the stairs, so this will be seen up close, and details must be sharp. I have never made such a large relief carving. I am using the newest version of Aspire.

Background 1: I made the job set-up so that the material would be the same size as the finished panel (over 11 feet wide). I set the resolution at "Very High" (7x slower). I started to model the simplest part, then looked at the 3D view, and as you can see from the attachment, the resolution is crummy. Then I went, "DUH, this carving is so big (11feet wide), and the part I am modeling is so small (about 16" by 10") that of course the resolution will be terrible." So, I decided to just model this little base part by itself, and changed the job setup material dimensions to 16" by 10". The apparent resolution was not improved at all.

Question 1: Do I have to erase the 3d models I have already created, and recreate them after I have changed the job size in order to get better resolution?

Background 2: The acanthus branches on this design are big, about half of the width of the panel.

Question 2: What do I do to make a high resolution model of the branches without having to break the branch into a bunch of little pieces? (I'd rather model the entire object as one big part if I can so I can look at the entire design from multiple angles.)

Question 3: How do you get to the "SUPER" resolution modes in Aspire? I recall you have to hold Ctrl, or something, when turning on Aspire, but I couldn't find that in the training videos. Will this be sufficient to allow me to make a high resolution model of the entire panel all as a single piece?

Thank you very much for any suggestions, Chuck

[srwtlc]

Chuck, once you have your initial job setup done, hold down shift and click the job setup again and you should see the extra res options. Hope you have some CPU horsepower, as rendering that size is going to take some oomph. Toolpath calculate times will suffer too, but it may get you what you need for res. If you can break it down into smaller chunks, that would help. I find sculpting on smaller areas of large jobs to be a bit difficult too. I've never done something as large as what you're attempting so maybe someone that has can answer better.

I tried a job size set to what you have there, set it to 50X res and made a small dome shape from a 3" circle and it looked pretty good.

[Chuck Keysor]

Thank you Scott, I appreciate your quick reply!

Following your directions, I was able to access the higher resolution modeling mode. But even when I went to maximum resolution (50X slower), the 3D rendering did not change at all. I did a screen refresh, (Ctrl F5), and that didn't help. So seems to suggest that I have to start over and re-model the parts I have already made to benefit from the higher resolution. It is easy enough to remodel the little bit I did, but it would be nice as the model gets more complex, that I could switch between resolutions on the fly. Oh well.

Hopefully someone else will be able to offer some work-arounds allowing me to model the entire model all at one time, and maintain high resolution.

My PC is two years old, and I did get a $300 Nvidia graphics card with 3 Gig of RAM. It has worked fine for Photoshop video editing, about the only demanding application I have beyond Aspire and Rhino. I'll hope for the best,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Thanks again, Chuck

PS: I have written how to access Aspire's Hi-Res mode in my Shopbot binder, where I keep all the answers I have collected from this forum! Thanks again...

[Chuck Keysor]

Well, this may not help, but it is my first test.... I had my original 3D rendering, as shown in my first post, really jagged edges. I took that model, and deleted the handle on the left side, changed the resolution to the highest, (50X slower), then remodeled that one part and all the jagged edges went away. That told me that in order to benefit from a higher resolution setting, that I had to delete the models that were made at the lower resolution....

So, I deleted all the other parts of the model, changed the resolution to the next step below maximum resolution, and then made a new copy of the handle, then went down to the next lower resolution, and repeated, until I had made 5 copies of the same part, all at different resolutions. Hmmmm, they all looked the same!!! (I rotated them, and zoomed in, looking at much more than just this inserted image.)

The inserted image shows all the parts side by side........... So now, it appears that either the resolution stays stuck at the maximum you select, OR, my original resolution was all messed up, because the first image was made with the job set-up model being over 11 feet wide, and then all the images made in this post, while of the full range of resolutions (standard to 50x slower) were all made with the job set-up model being 16 inches wide.

My GUESS is that the improved resolution shown in the various renderings in this inserted image is do to the greatly reduced model size. Instead of guessing, I should test this, but it is too late for me now. I'll try and test this in the morning, and see if I can reach a startling conclusion.......... stay tuned, Chuck

[Chuck Keysor]

Well, I took my model, and changed the job size/model size, up to 138" x 32". The existing models I created for the previous test, which all looked equally good when viewed in the 16" x 10" model, all looked equally BAD when changed up to the large model size.

Then, I created 5 new parts, ALL while in the large 138" x 32" model size. I started with the maximum resolution (50X slower) and it looked bad. I then changed the resolution setting in the Job Set-up dialog window to be 20X slower, and the new model looked identical to the 50X model, (just as bad, no better, no worse). I repeated down the line, and the resulting image of all 5 parts is shown in the inserted image.

Conclusions:

1) At least when dealing with either a HUGE job size/model size, or with a small model size, the resolution selected in the job set-up dialog box seems to make NO difference in the quality of the rendering. The rendering quality seemed (at these extremes) to be entirely determined by the model size.

2) From my simple observation (not using a timer), the rendering time seemed to be no different.

3) Dropping a good looking image created in a small modeling space (independent of the selected modeling resolution), into a large modeling space turns the great image into a crummy image. This is of significance, as that would indicate that if I made a bunch of nice looking small models of my individual parts, that it would all go to pot if I pasted them all into a big model space, to make a composite model of my entire carving................

Well, MAYBE I have drawn some faulty conclusions. It is late,,,,, Please comment if you have something that will help me figure out how best to proceed.

Thanks again, Chuck

[adrianm]

http://forum.vectric.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=19256

[Brady Watson]

This is very good :

http://forum.vectric.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=19256

Especially the PDF in the thread.

-B

[GeneMpls]

This is very good :

Especially the PDF in the thread.

-B

Very good- thanks Brady. Where did this come from, I love the intricacies of programs.

[adrianm]

Very good- thanks Brady. Where did this come from, I love the intricacies of programs.

The PDF was written by Brian Moran of Vectric.

[Chuck Keysor]

Thank you Adrian for providing the PDF of Brian Moran's article on modeling resolution. I have read it through once and found it to be very informative.

However, the article leaves me feeling that I will not be able to reasonably model this entire carving as one big model. Here is what I was planning to do before discovering my resolution issues yesterday:

For Designing: I was planning to create one big 3d relief model, from which to improve my design! (The previously attached image of the colorized panel was nothing more than a first pass design, which was made using maybe 10 raster images, all highly modified and assembled in Photoshop.) I was hoping to evaluate the complete/composite model in Aspire, viewing it from multiple angles, and adjusting things that struck me as being wrong. (I did this with some smaller (about 3 foot by 3 foot) designs last year, and Aspire worked very well as an evaluation, design tool.) The design as it exists, does need lots of improvement, as many parts still look in-artfully clunky. Basically, adjusting the weight of the branches and leaves, can't really be done efficiently without viewing them in the context of the entire design. So this turn of events seems unfortunate from the perspective of how I had planned and hoped to use Aspire in my design and build process.

For Cutting the finished product: I never intended to cut this panel out of one giant piece of PVC. I was going to cut locator outlines on the 12 foot by 3 foot piece of thin PVC, and then glue blocks of PVC onto the 12' x 3' PVC sheet to build up the stock only where it was needed. Then I would carve from that point from a single CRV file.

But as it stands after reading Brian Moran's article:
For Designing: It appears as though my best course of action, is to model each component (flowers, torch, base, vines, branches....) in its own file (filling the model space for each part). Saving these components, but bringing copies of each into a master file that shows all parts arranged as shown in my original Photoshop mock-up. If the "branches" look too fat, well, I'll have to go back to the original "branch" design, edit that on its own, HOPING to get it right, pasting it into the composite model, then checking that out, and iterate repeatedly.

For Cutting: I am still not sure.
a: If I cut out each part individually, I'll have to cut create pockets everywhere one part over-laps another. That seems like it would be very complicated to me.
b: If I create one big composite model, and carve it all at one time (as I originally had originally planned to do), I will have to go and rework the entire carving by hand to provide the needed detail (again, this mounts right over the front stairs of the mansion, and people will stand right there and look at it. It is not 30 feet up in the air......) Right now, this looks to me like what I will do.


Question: Are there other options I have missed? Is choice a: as pesky as I think it will be?

Thank you, Chuck