Official Luthiers Forum!

Is there a program that is online that can print out single line samples of any radius?

I would be interested in this myself also.

Don't know of any online drawing programs that do this. I laid out radii for my dishes in adobe illustrator, I am more than happy to send pdf's of a bunch of radii 24" plus if you can narrow down what you would like. It literally takes minutes. T

Google Sketchup

It's a very capable CAD program. Easy to learn, and free!

Peace,
Sanaka

_________________
...imagine there were no hypothetical situations...

Thanks for the tip.
But....easy to use??? I downloaded and installed the software........searched (which doesn't help much) ,etc..

Any hints on how to draw and print a 20 foot radius template that's 24" long (tiled across three printed pages).

Thanks!

John

John, if you have a printer that can print banner type items, that feeds from the back, you can cut light poster board into 8 1/2" strips and print on one piece of paper 8 1/2 x 28". I have done it for half body printouts. Works great. Make sure your printer is printing 100% and is accurate.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Waddy-
Thanks for that tip, which could help with printing .pdf files as well as other pics.

I was actually asking Sanaka for some hints on the 'easy' Google Sketchup software.

(It looks about as opaque as the usual drawing/CAD program to me- I don't 'get' the way of thinking that some software seems to use...)


Cheers
John

I haven't used sketchup for a few years, but used to print out body and bracing patterns. There's a field in the print preview menu called "model extents" that allows you to set the print scale to 1:1, but it still takes some trial and error to get the result you're after. Re: getting everything on one page, you can do the smart thing (like Waddy did) or you can get out the tape and scissors (like I did). Re: CAD programs, check out MoI3D. It's basically Rhino Lite, but with an easier to understand interface. I knew nothing about 3D but was able to make a crude bridge after a few hours of playing around. I believe the demo is unlimited use for 30 days, or 30 saves over an unlimited time frame (your choice).


Bob

I am guessing, and maybe Michael Payne can chime in, but even if a s/w package can generate it, printing is another thing. At those large radii, it seems possible that printer inaccuracies could come into play (unless you had one of those high end architect printers).

Long compass... no scaling problems.

Mike

Well... easier to learn than my couple stabs at AutoCad. I was able to use it for most things instead of my of my drafting table after a couple weeks of dinking around with it. So, no, not like the Apple iPad commercial which claims that "you already know how..."

I just tried to print a segment of a 20' circle and got nowhere really so, yah, Sketchup might not be the bees knees for that. timoM's post mentions a 24 inch radius, so Iwas thinking more along those lines. Plus, this maybe being less-critical-than-a-fretboard-printout not withstanding, I'm not sure tape and scissors is the way to go with any template. Devising big compasses is fun!

Peace,
Sanaka

_________________
...imagine there were no hypothetical situations...

Thanks, Sanaka!

I do this sort of stuff 'manually' myself, as well!

Cheers
John

A nail, a length of string, and a pencil seems like just the thing.

Worked for me! Actually I drilled holes in my tape measure at the right places. Easier than measuring string out and trying to tie a knot in the right place.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

This is one area where a computer and a printer and a s/w package is WAY overkill. And way too hard. Like others have said, (and if the long compass eludes you), use some picture hanging wire from Lowes and a pencil (wire wont stretch much).

Now, lets get back to work!

Mike

Perhaps my post was confusing, I meant 24'' sections of large radii like you would use. Printing from a high quality vector based program will be very accurate.

Is this any use

http://gicl.cs.drexel.edu/people/sevy/l ... mpass.html