Decals using computer question - arising from UP's new direction

Another program is AutoSketch. Its usually under a $100US and you can design at 1:1 scale. That's nice if you've taken measurements from the prototype. No problems with background because there isn't one. When you print, just select your scale factor 1/87, 1/48, etc.

Jim

I have used Evan Designs Software Depot, and there is a serious bug in the text application. It would make it quite impossible to use the program for printing car data. ED is aware of the problem and will hopefully have it corrected in the next update.

Designing and printing in scale is my biggest stumbling block. Do you have the name of the folks who publish this program, and perhaps a URL to their website?

Frank (and others),

Designing in scale is easy enough if you just take it one step at a time...

1. Measure the prototype... let's say it is 9" tall
2. Divide that by your modeling scale. In my case, that's HO, so,

9"/87=.103

1. In most drawing programs, you have to choose a DPI setting; that's dots (or pixels) per inch. My ALPS outputs at 600dpi, so I use that for the sharpest results. Now multiply the dpi seting by the deximal from Step 2 and you get 61.8 or 62. So... the measurement in pixels is 62 high or wide, whichever way your measurement went.

Give it a try and I think you will find that it's pretty easy.

Another thing that I do is to have a "blank" carside saved on my computer. Whenever I create any lettering design, I create it on that car side. That way, you can tell immediately if it "looks" right.

If you are still interested but still a bit confused, contact me via my email address and we can dig a little deeper...

dlm

A bargain at that price. Far better than bit map editing programs - unless you're diddling with photos, a vector graphics program like CorelDRAW is far preferable.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Merkel" Newsgroups: rec.models.railroad Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 1:20 PM Subject: Re: Decals using computer question - arising from UP's newdirection

How do you create the car side? Manually, by measuring the prototype?

BTW, thanks for the explanation!!!

I was wondering if this printer from Olympus would work in place of the Alps as it too is a Dye-sublimation print process also. Here is a link to their webpage about it:

Rick Fink

Brian Paul Ehni wrote:

Keith Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.

TurboCAD by IMSISoft. $8 at Half-Price Books. Does 2D/3D, saves in most formats, groups drawing components as objects, drawings to scale of your choice, quite versatile.

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

Sheesh, Ratty, did Spanky Wanky knock all your brains out?

Can you try to come up with something relevant. YOU are the one hung up on that guy so he must be tanning your backside. You sure know alot about him and spanking and can't get it out of your mind...........why? We know why! HAHHA

It's too bad they don't offer a demo... :-(

I could only find books on AutoCad at HPB. I know they sell software, too, but a search for AutoCad only turned up books on the program...

I don't know how Dan does it, but what I do first when making s decal set or laying out the lettering for a kit is take a ruler and a set of calipers to the model and make an actual-size drawing of the car, including the key details (rivet lines, sill tabs, grabs, accessory hardware, etc.). I save it as a separate file, so that I can re-use the drawing as a base for later projects. Then, I copy it and place it on a drawing layer beneath the one I use to lay out the decal artwork. CorelDRAW makes this easy.

Not only does having the car drawing make it easier to lay out the artwork while developing it, it gives me something I can use as the lettering diagram for any of the sets I wish to sell. Often I end up spending as much time on the instruction sheet as I do laying out the decal artwork itself.

-fm Producer of Michigan-prototype HO decals, at

The address in the header of this message is deliberately bogus to foil address-harvesters. See my web sites for my real address.

Do you have any explanation, other than your own ignorance, how a reference to using a vector drawing program as opposed to a bit map editing program has sweet f--- all to do tieh "wannabe hacker"?

OK, back on your head.

And how do you scale the drawing on the computer screen?

Hey, you do good work!

Click on the software tab, enter "turbo cad" in the search box, search. Version 7 is $35, version 6.5 only $8 (and will probably be just fine for what you want). Myself, I prefer CorelDRAW for text work, but then I haven't had to pay for it since I upgraded to version 6 (which was a dog for sure), because I did support for Paradox database after they bought rights to it from Borland and got it free. The $80 "lite" package sounds like a great deal. Try the $8 TurboCAD first and see if it fills your needs.

Oh I see... I thought you were talking about AutoCAD!