TechMonkeyBusiness

3D Model Contact Sheets using FreeCAD and ImageMagick

Le Fri 28 June 2019

I’m sure I’m not the only person with access to a 3D printer who collects vast quantities of 3D printable models and then forgets which ones what and even that you had a particular model in your library. The best way I find to keep track of them is to have an image of each for quick reference. What I figured I needed was something to create a contact sheet with thumbnails of all the models in a chosen directory and the filenames of each. A combination on FreeCAD and ImageMagick with a python based FreeCAD macro to do the repetitive work was the solution. This article describes the use of this macro and provides links to it.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Python / FreeCAD / Models / ImageMagick / Graphics / Tools /

Autres articles

Exporting Godot 2 projects to Android and Other Platforms

Le Tue 23 April 2019

Once you have a few packages installed on your computer, exporting to Android and other operating systems is a breeze. This article describes what is required to export your project to Android. it also touches on exporting to Windows and Linux platforms.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Godot / Graphics /

Batch Converting jp2 images to jpgs, and pdfs using ImageMagick

Le Tue 15 January 2019

This is a short description of using ImageMagick version 6 and the mogrifytool to batch convert .jp2 files to .jpgs and then to .pdfs.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : ImageMagick / Graphics / Tools /

The OptionButton Node in Godot2

Le Mon 10 September 2018

This article covers the OptionButton node which can be used to make GUI selection choices in Godot2.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Godot / Graphics /

The ItemList Node in Godot

Le Mon 02 July 2018

While doing development using the Godot Game Engine I have found that there are a lack of written examples demonstrating how to use some of the tools. So to try to fill this gap, here is another article on using the ItemList node to create item lists in GUIs. The demonstration shown is for both Godot3 and Godot2.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Godot / Graphics /

SpinBoxes in Godot3

Le Thu 21 June 2018

I have been playing around with the Godot Game Engine recently to find a suitable alternative to the Blender Game Engine and to Pygame. It has been a rapid learning curve for me and I have a way to go yet. Having said that there are a few things I have learned that are probably worth sharing to spare others the same running around and experimentation I have needed to do in order to learn these things. So here is a brief article describing two ways to produce a SpinBox for interfaces made with Godot3.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Godot / Graphics /

Python and Scribus Scripts to Deal Story Cards

Le Wed 23 November 2016

I enjoy story-telling games. I have various story telling games such as Gloom, a game I made up loosely based on Nanofictionary, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and various heavily modified versions of Atlas Games' Once Upon a Time. Of course the natural thing to do was to come up with my own game. This has a working title of “Story Soup” and about 600 cards ... which means to shuffle the cards effectively you need pretty big hands. I have yet to finalise this, but in the meantime I was keen to use it to generate some plots for some stories. This article descibes and lists the scripts.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Scribus / Python / Graphics / Tools /

Making Little Planets

Le Wed 27 April 2016

This is a tutorial about making "Little Planet" images using the GIMP.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Textures / Planet / Graphics / Art /

Texture Galleries

Le Fri 01 April 2016

Many of my project have required me to produce texture resources. Those that are specific to a project are packaged with the project, but there are a number of generic textures that I call on time and time again. I have packaged these up into a series of texture-based galleries so they may be accessed by you for your own projects.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Models and Games

Tags : Art / Games / Celestia / Graphics / Planet / Textures /

An Analysis of the Role of Ceramics in Video Games

Le Sat 02 January 2016

One of the things I have observed with interest during the time that I have been playing computer games is the number of games where you can break pottery and generally obtain some benefit from doing so. This article investigates the phenomenon and the meaning that may be able to be derived from it. Analysis presented is scientific and not at all made up.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Essays

Tags : Playstation / Games / Graphics / Essay / Ceramics /

Creating Buffer Zones in QGIS

Le Tue 24 November 2015

This is a quick guide on creating buffer zones around features in QGIS.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : QGIS / Map Making / Graphics / GIS /

Steely Taws – Puzzle Game v3

Le Thu 22 October 2015

First there was Steely Taws - no Quitsies which introduced the basic mechanisms for a Blender Game Engine ball game, then there was the first edition of the Steely Taws Puzzle Game complete with a puzzle and fancy whizzy contraptions, now there is version 3 (We just skipped version 2 for some reason). This one introduces a maze puzzle level built using Elfnor's fabulous Sverchok automated level builder.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Models and Games

Tags : Games / Blender / Models / Graphics /

Cutting and Intersecting Vector Layers in QGIS

Le Fri 02 October 2015

From time to time it is necesasry to create a new GIS shape layer derived from the shapes of a couple of other layers. This involves the Geoprocessing Tools which include various Boolean operations such as unions, Intersections, and differences. This simple guides demonstrates these operations.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : QGIS / Map Making / Graphics / GIS /

Achieving a Square Map Grid in QGIS

Le Fri 11 September 2015

This is a real basic tutorial about changing the Coordinate Reference System (CRS) in a GIS project to make the distance based grid look square. It does not go into the details of why the distortion occurs becasue there is plenty of guidance on this elsewhere on the web. Being a newby to GIS it took me quite a while to figure out the solution. Hopefully this will help those who are new to GIS and find themselves faced with this fairly simple problem.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : QGIS / Map Making / Graphics / GIS /

A Scribus Script to Load Text from a List

Le Tue 23 June 2015

I am creating a story telling card game with a particularly large deck of cards. In order to be focused on creating the content, I wanted to come up with some tools to take a text list and distribute it across a series of pages to make cards and then add a background image to each card. Scribus is an excellent tool for doing this efficiently and accurately. Two python scripts have been developed; one to apply the background images, and the one described on this page to convert a list of text into the words on the card faces.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Scribus / Python / Graphics / Tools /

A Scribus Script to Distribute Images Across Page

Le Tue 23 June 2015

I am creating a story telling card game with a particularly large deck of cards. In order to be focused on creating the content, I wanted to come up with some tools to take a text list and distribute it across a series of pages to make cards and then add a background image to each card. Scribus is an excellent tool for doing this efficiently and accurately. Two python scripts have been developed; one to convert a list of text into the words on the card faces, and the one described on this page to apply the background images.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Scribus / Python / Graphics / Tools /

Steely Taws Standardised Components

Le Thu 11 June 2015

To make things easier when building levels for the Steely Taws game, here is a set of components that have been standardised to common dimensions and origin positions.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Models and Games

Tags : Games / Blender / Models / Python / Graphics /

Turning a Text List into Inkscape Text Objects

Le Wed 10 June 2015

Have you ever been faced with re-typing a list of text as a series of text objects in a graphics package? Yeah. It's tedious eh? Well here is a quick and dirty python script to take a list of text and convert it to a number of text objects in an SVG file that Inkscape can read.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Inkscape / Python / Graphics / Tools /

Steely Taws – Puzzle Game v1

Le Thu 04 June 2015

First there was Steely Taws - no Quitsies which introduced the basic mechanisms for a Blender Game Engine ball game, but now we have the first edition of the Steely Taws Puzzle Game. It even has a puzzle in it, and all the building blocks you could ever need to build your own puzzles.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Models and Games

Tags : Games / Blender / Models / Graphics /

Steely Taws Components

Le Thu 04 June 2015

The Steely Taws puzzle game is composed of a large number of modular bits that can be reconfigured to suit the users puzzles. This page explains the various components that have been designed, and how they work. There is a link to download a .zip file containing all of the components available. Happy building.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Models and Games

Tags : Games / Blender / Models / Python / Graphics /

Steely Taws – No Quitsies

Le Sun 22 March 2015

Quite a few years ago I designed a simple game inspired by games like Switchball and Ballance using the Blender Game Engine. I dusted this off and got down to adding the functionality that it lacked previously. The game described and downloadable from here is the basic engine for more sophisticated puzzle games based on rolling a ball through various physics based puzzles. I describe the game mechanics used.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Models and Games

Tags : Games / Blender / Models / Python / Graphics /

Custom RC Desk Pilot Scenes

Le Sun 08 February 2015

With a few rough python tools now to hand and visions for new worlds I have been building customised scenes for the RC Desk Pilot simulator. This page is where you can download these new scenes and get an idea of what they will look like.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Models and Games

Tags : Textures / Games / RC Aircraft / Python / Simulators / Graphics /

Creating New Scenery for RC Desk Pilot

Le Wed 24 December 2014

I was browsing around to see what radio control aircraft model simulators were avilable when I came across R/C Desk Pilot, which I felt was a pretty slick little simulator. Unfortunately it only had one scene, so I picked at it a bit and found that it was possible to make new scenes for it. This tutorial / guide explains the process of building a new scene.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Textures / Planet / Games / RC Aircraft / Python / Simulators / Graphics / Tools /

Component Model Library

Le Thu 07 August 2014

During the process of designing stuff I have built up a library of digital models of purchased components. This webpage provides links to the various models that I have created so that you can download and use them in your own creations. The models are in Blender and OBJ formats.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Models and Games

Tags : Models / Blender / Carrara / RC Aircraft / ROV / Graphics /

Using Photographic Backgrounds in Blender

Le Wed 30 July 2014

This tutorial brings together various methods explained in tutorial from around the web where photographs are put into the background of Blender models so that modeled elements may be rendered to appear in the photographed scene.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Blender / Graphics / Art /

Customised Gthumb Web Galleries

Le Thu 26 June 2014

Gthumb is a nifty little program for viewing images but it also generates some pretty tidy webgalleries using static webpages. This is how to set up the images, modify a theme, and generate a web gallery.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Gthumb / Themes / Graphics /

Blender to TurboCAD 2D Engineering Drawing Toolchain

Le Wed 25 June 2014

Getting an accurate 2D drawing from your fabulously accurate Blender Model can be a problem. Using STLs and Meshlab as intermediaries allows me to get the model into TurboCAD without losing accuracy. From there I can quickly draw around the shapes using vertex snaps and generate a 2D drawing in a pdf form that can be printed on paper at the right scale and used as a template for cutting.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Blender / TurboCAD / Graphics /

Creating Seamless Spherical Textures

Le Thu 21 June 2012

This tutorial goes into the details of how to make a seamless spherical texture for use on rocky planets based on a collection of texture photos. This has been used successfully in Carrara renders and Celestia.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Celestia / Carrara / Textures / Planet / Graphics / Art /

Creating Planetary Rings In Blender

Le Sun 08 April 2012

This is an illustrated method for creating rings for planets in Blender.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Tutorials

Tags : Blender / Planet / Textures / Graphics / Art /

Modular Space Station library

Le Wed 01 September 2010

The inspiration for this model library was the "Spacestation Manager" and "Shorthike" games that were available several years back. I liked the ability to build a modular space station that looked believable.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Models and Games

Tags : Models / Carrara / Graphics /

Flyer Tug

Le Thu 17 June 2010

Developed as part of a Blender Game Engine game this model was further refined with extra detail and some tidying up so that it could be used in artwork. Some articulation is present in some of the formats.

Par Hamish Trolove, Catégorie : Models and Games

Tags : Models / Blender / Carrara / Graphics / Art /