Background Image Different Scales

I have found a few other threads dealing with this issue but they didn’t answer the question for me. Here is what I have done and want to do:

  1. Model a 50" plasma
  2. Have the reference images
  3. Used Gimp to get them to approx same size
  4. Used the background image option
  5. Scaled a box to fix the measurement of the plasma
  6. Scaled the front image to fit the box

Everything was going great!

  1. Used the background image option for side
  2. Background image is different scale from front - used scale image
  3. Scale image can’t make side image small enough to match front

I have rescaled the side image to make it smaller - doesn’t work.

What is going wrong here? I am working in metric and found that 1 BU = 1 Meter. I don’t think that my model is too small - or is it? The height of the plasma is 697 mm which equals almost 1 BU so size can’t be a factor can it?

I am confused! Please help!

After I posted this question last night I had an epiphany as my head hit the pillow - what if each image has to be the same aspect ratio and pixel size. This morning when I cropped my images I made sure their pixel size were the same. Now when I set them to background the scaling problem is gone.

What I was doing was cropping each image without regard to their aspect ratio. The front image was much wider than the left side. I made the side as wide as the front - made both images 2400 x 1600.

Just thought I would share in case anyone else has the same problem.

Thanks for letting me post my stupidity!

:o

Do you know that you can re-size each background image in Blender? In the Background image panel is a Size setting. This can be used to increase or decrease the displayed size of your image. No need to edit or crop the actual image file. This is handy if you have a small image and want to make it bigger without actually increasing the image file size and thus your memory needs.
Good luck.

Yes, I knew about the re-sizing. The problem was that it was not allowing my side profile image to resize enough. Once I got to the limit I had a problem.

I realized that each image needed to be approx the same size so that the re-size option would work. What I was doing was cropping the side image of my plasma screen so thin that when I linked them as a background images the scale factor was screwy - at least that was what I assumed. When I made each image to be the same aspect ratio my scaling problem went away.

Don’t ask me - I didn’t program it but that’s what I found.

Opps - wrong thread