I have googled this eight ways to sunday, with various subsets and synonyms of the above post subject, and cannot find any evidence that someone else has already done this, what tips they might have, or ideally a template to share.
I’ve used Blender on two home renovation projects fairly thoroughly (modelling to the level of individual studs) so I’m happy with it that way, but having done that, I might as well use for the building permit application too.
So if I can’t find anything, I think what I’d be trying is setting my camera aspect ratio to the aspect ratio of my intended destination paper format, adding a flat white “paper” object for just the margins and title block, which would give me a frame with a hole cut in it to view the scene, tied to the camera location so it exactly fills the field of view no matter where I move the camera, and then adding my title block text to that.
Sorry for posting in General forum but from here http://blenderartists.org/forum/ there really didn’t seem any spot that was relevant to this question (open to suggestions for a better place to ask this, different forum site, etc).
Seems a bit inefficient to do that in Blender (Illustrator? InDesign?) but sounds like that should work. Just remember to set your paper and text materials to Shadeless so that they appear how you intend them to.
Yeah I agree with StompinTom. I’d probably just make a template using inkscape and then overlay it with the Blender compositor. I think it’d just be less hassle in the long run.
There is an option for a watermark or screen overlay or something like that in the render settings panel. I would find the exact name but my system is busy trying to export a render to Lux render.
Your best bet would be to make your title block in Inkscape then export to PNG somewhere. Point the overlay, watermark thing in Blender to it and then render. This should create a similar effect to a title block in AutoCad. Then when sheet one is rendered and done, open Inkscape and change the details to fit sheet two and export to PNG again in the same location. Go back to Blender and render sheet two, Blender should re-load the new watermark and super-impose it onto your render. Not exactly parametric but it should pass local building codes, as long as you offer to buy the inspector lunch.
wow guys thanks so much for the quick replies and thoughtful, varied suggestions.
Yeah I’d like to keep it in Blender without jumping back and forth to Inkscape or other external tools after every iteration of every drawing (need to submit probably 20 drawings from different viewpoints). It may be less efficient initially as a way to quickly write the labels, but once it is done, I prefer the workflow to just be render… done (print or print to PDF). Maybe I can python script it (a drawing properties pop-up that then fills in the title block) and contribute it back somewhere. Most suitable place, if I do that?
And StompinTom, if that’s a reference to the real Stompin Tom, I’m a fan too (Toronto boy, but born in Ottawa : - ). Thanks for the tip about shadeless.
greyoxide, I’ll check into the watermark idea too. Like I said I’m thinking I’d like to do it all in Blender, but it is good to know other options.
And RickyBlender, amazing… months ago when first trying to figure this out (its been on the back burner for a while as I got crazy busy at work), I’d found a web version of that exact same tutorial about the wheel bearings, but it was shorter and didn’t include the section on the paper borders and title block. Thanks.
It’s an old nickname, not my doing, really, but I’m also an Ottawa boy, though I’ve since left the continent.
You could probably write a simple Python script that creates a ‘paper’ plane and a couple of Text objects in front of your camera and adjusts their info. Just keep all that junk on a separate layer to not clutter your scene, parent it to the Camera and perhaps script-link their size to the Camera focal length, etc. I’ve been tempted to do something like this for arch. projects, but have lately resorted to using InDesign and Illustrator for those things, as half the battle seems to be annotation and graphics these days, at least in my work.