I have a request !!

[zedeneye1]

Its very hard to accurately get reference images into blender.

I'm unable to do it.

using background images, the scale is different in different viewports....

So my request to the developers is to please develop a fool proof method where reference images are displayed in the viewports with 100% accuracy...

Also, I believe blender comes with no material presets...it would be good to have some basic 10 or so presets....

I come from 3ds max and it had the same reference image problem when using background images (but slightly better than blender). But fortunately I found a mod where you select the top, back, front, side images and it turn all of them into planes and put them at the correct angles, with just one click. If something similar could be done in blender, it would save alot of time for people like me who want to model cars...

[stiv]

Use Planes and put an image texture on them.

[zedeneye1]

Use Planes and put an image texture on them.

thats what I do, but a small addon would be good.

[zedeneye1]

Use Planes and put an image texture on them.

thats what I do, but a small addon would be good.

no, great!

[stiv]

Like maybe the Import Images As Planes add-on?

[zedeneye1]

Like maybe the Import Images As Planes add-on?

yes, except it opens a small window when run where u select four images for the front, side, top and back viewports....and when u click "okay", it automatically creates four new planes in the correct place/angle with the correct picture assigned as texture/material...

just a little suggestion..would be a time save for car modelers and other similar stuff.....

[brasshat]

Well, as far as an add on placing planes in the correct place, I suspect this will not be as useful as one might hope, because many times the location for one or more of the planes will not be quite what is desired, and they will have to be moved, rotated, or scaled. For example, suppose one is making a blender representation of a house, and one cannot get to a place where either of the end views are the same scale as the front view, because of ajoining houses, so that the front, and two side views are all in different scales.

My alternative to using planes for the background images, is to use image processing software to make certain that all of the images are the same scale (that is, the same corner of the house in two different images is the same height in pixels), and after making any needed perspective adjustments, to scale the images so that they are the same physical size in pixels. This removes at least one of the adjustments in the background images panel (size), allowing me to need to adjust only the x and y offsets.

ns

[CoDEmanX]

so you would actually need a function to somehow adjust scale of the background images to the used images, maybe by using feature points, a hand drawn vector or something?

[zedeneye1]

so you would actually need a function to somehow adjust scale of the background images to the used images, maybe by using feature points, a hand drawn vector or something?

I don't know why, but I get a feeling that almost all blender users have never used any other mainstream 3d software...

what I'm talking about is a simple tool for objects like cars, aeroplanes, tanks, etc etc...u usually model these objects using reference images. I used to model in 3ds max and I found a small max script plugin that you could run and it would open a small window where u select 4 images for front, back, side and top and it would automatically setup 4 planes, assign them the images as texture and place them at the right spot.

so if the car size(and the reference image is also car sized, no extra blank pixels) is :

height = 3
length = 8
width = 4

it would make planes as follows:

-side plane =3 x 8 (visible from the right/left viewports)
-top plane =4 x 8 (visible from the top viewport)
-front plane =3 x 4 (visible from the front viewport)
-back plane =3 x 4 (visible from the back viewport)

[CoDEmanX]

What I understand is, that the background images feature is actually what you need and wanna use. But you are not happy with how it works, 'cause you can't get the images in the right scale.

I tested out the background images and can't understand why this doesn't work for you. Scale seems fine. The only drawback I see is that each 3D View got its own background image settings (which is intended), and if you change scale/offset of a background in one viewport, other viewports won't update accordingly.

using background images, the scale is different in different viewports....

If that's the only problem with background images, you mainly need a button to propagate/transfer background image settings from one 3D View to another / to all others. Is that correct?

[brasshat]

I am not the original poster, and I think I may have helped him with some other work-arounds to his problem in another thread. But I share his concern that the use of background images is unnecessarily difficult. My problem may be with a lack of documentation about how the "size" parameter relates to the image. If I have several images in which the object are the same scale, such as the OP's various view of a car, or the elevation drawings of a building, but where the resulting images have different size, there is no documentation about how to choose size parameters for the various images so that in the viewport, the scale of the various views is the same. At minimum this should be discussed somewhere in the documentation.

But we are using computer's, the native function of which is to manipulate data, so it would seem to me that it might be appropriate to have a facility in the background images that would allow the user to specify the width and height of an image, and the length of a defined reference line in the image, and the desired length that reference line in blender units in the model, and have the size value for the background images property panel calculated. Using the example specified by the OP of the car, if the reference image has a height of the car of 300 pixels, a length of 800 pixels, and a width of 400 pixels, I'd like to be able to enter the view (top), show the size of the image as 400 x 800 pixels, show the with as desired length of some reference parameter (in this case, width), and indicate how many blender units I'd like that width to be in the model and either have returned the value I need to place in the size field, or have that value inserted into the size field.

This would be especially useful in cases where the user is using four background images in the same viewport.

ns

[CoDEmanX]

Ok, I spent some time thinking about a solution and the easiest by now appeared to be to add an operator, which lets the user rescale images to a pixels-per-unit factor, so based on the source's pixel size.

Here's the addon i wrote:

http://www.pasteall.org/39590/python

The calculation is simple, Blender takes any input image and makes it 2 units wide in viewport at Scale 1.0 (one unit from origin to the left, one to the right). So the formula is image_width / factor / 2. I suggest to set a factor, which is a power of 10 (1, 10, 100, 1000...)

[zedeneye1]

Ok, I spent some time thinking about a solution and the easiest by now appeared to be to add an operator, which lets the user rescale images to a pixels-per-unit factor, so based on the source's pixel size.

Here's the addon i wrote:

http://www.pasteall.org/39590/python

The calculation is simple, Blender takes any input image and makes it 2 units wide in viewport at Scale 1.0 (one unit from origin to the left, one to the right). So the formula is image_width / factor / 2. I suggest to set a factor, which is a power of 10 (1, 10, 100, 1000...)

and how do I use this addon? (I don't know any python, only C)

[CoDEmanX]

install it like usual and see background images panel

[CoDEmanX]

Ok, to make it easier, right-click the following link and save as...

space_view3d_background_images_rescale.py

then go to Blender, File > User Preferences

Addons tab

Install Addon button (or Install from file...)

Select the py script you downloaded

Enable the addon by ticking the little box to the right of the addon entry