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I am looking for a site where there are drawings of Vehicles. I am about to make signs on 4 cars and to have a drawing to measure the right size of each sign would be helpful. I have seen it before but cant find it know. Can anyone point me in the right direction
-------------------- Stein Saether GullSkilt AS Trondheim Posts: 1192 | From: Trondheim Norway | Registered: Nov 1998
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At one time I'd get the drawing and every year they'd have a fee for the new ones. I went back to just taking a photo of the vehicle and measuring a door or some part of the truck and bringing the photo into my graphics program. I'd draw a rectangle where I had done the measurement and then resize it to what I measured and resize the photo with it. Having a full size photo makes the designing much easier.
-------------------- The SignShop Mendocino, California
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. — Charles Mingus Posts: 6860 | From: Mendocino, CA. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Rick, that's exactly what I do. I used to buy the vector programs and then just started taking a photo. If you take the photo from a distance, there will be less distortion, whether blown up on your screen or by zoom on your camera.
-------------------- David Harding A Sign of Excellence Carrollton, TX Posts: 5127 | From: Carrollton, TX, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I bought a magnetic 3' tape at Home Depot. Most vehicles I can stick it to the side and take a picture. I do the same as Rick with my measurement right there on the vehicle.
-------------------- Don Hulsey Strokes by DON signs Utica, KY 270-275-9552 sbdsigns@aol.com
I've always been crazy... but it's kept me from going insane. Posts: 2332 | From: Utica, KY U.S.A. | Registered: Jan 1999
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I do the same as Rick. People like it when they see the lettering on their own vehicle. The only bad thing is that on large or long vehicles, there is a curve from the lens of the camera. So kinsda have to make adjustments for the curve. I think that's why some people don't photograph well. The head shape gets curved.
-------------------- Signs by Alicia Jennings (Mudflap Girl) Tacoma, WA Since 1987 Have Lipstick, will travel. Posts: 3979 | From: Tacoma, WA. U.S.A. | Registered: Dec 1999
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Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. — Charles Mingus Posts: 6860 | From: Mendocino, CA. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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The lens distortion on vehicles is lessened by taking the shot at a distance. It's a good idea to have a length, not just of a door but height between easily identifiable objects on a vehicle and a rather long length, perhaps between front and rear turn signal lamps. You can then correct the distortion in your graphics package. CorelDraw allows editing of perspective and lens barreling.
Alicia, you just told me why my photos come out bad. It's not that I'm unphotogenic--the head shape is getting curved! I've also found out that just like vehicles, I look better in photos taken from a distance--a quarter mile is usually sufficient for photos of me.
-------------------- David Harding A Sign of Excellence Carrollton, TX Posts: 5127 | From: Carrollton, TX, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I usually do that, taping a meter measure on the car and take photos, for this job the cars are 120 km away, behind a snowy and ice mountain, so I asked the customer to take photos. So he did, from strange angels, in low light and without a measure . The drawings I have found online seems to be badly organized, hardly any mentioning of model year, different name for same car etc etc. I do hope it ends well
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I am very pleased by the good advice and kind response I got here. I used to read and post on this site every day, its been a while, but now I come Home again.
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They always manage to take them from an angle in poor lighting. Perhaps you can ask them to take more pictures straight on.
Perhaps you can also ask them to give you a measurement. You might ask for the measurement after you get the photo because you could mark on the photo a section to measure. Make sure it's a section you can see clearly and one that they won't get confused trying to measure.
You can let them know it will save them money to get that information to you because you won't have to spend all day driving there and back to get some measurements.
-------------------- David Harding A Sign of Excellence Carrollton, TX Posts: 5127 | From: Carrollton, TX, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I told them several times. Maybe I dont underline it enough ?
I worked something out from a combination of those photos, ads from car dealers, information from gov vehicles registration database and some qualified guessing combined with a tolerance margin.
We will se how that goes, the proof is in ...
-------------------- Stein Saether GullSkilt AS Trondheim Posts: 1192 | From: Trondheim Norway | Registered: Nov 1998
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