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Scaling Digital Pics of Bldgs in Corel X3

Arlo Kalon 2.0

Arlo Kalon 2.0

New Member
Awhile back somebody posted a method for doing this and I can't find the thread. What it pertains to is something I have to do numerous times each week. I get a dig pic of a building front from sales I have to scale to create layouts of electrical signs on. Usually, I am given a reference measurement of say a window on the building in order to accurately scale the building pic. This method often involves a LOT of resizing the pic.

I recall a post about a shortcut method of accomplishing this by creating a box and power clipping the pic into it to instantly arrive at the desired scale pic. I've experimented with doing this numerous times and can't duplicate the method. Does this ring a bell with anyone? I'd appreciate a step by step description if you know how to do what I'm talking about. It will literally save me hours each week. Thanks!!!
 
bob

bob

It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Arlo Kalon said:
Awhile back somebody posted a method for doing this and I can't find the thread. What it pertains to is something I have to do numerous times each week. I get a dig pic of a building front from sales I have to scale to create layouts of electrical signs on. Usually, I am given a reference measurement of say a window on the building in order to accurately scale the building pic. This method often involves a LOT of resizing the pic.

I recall a post about a shortcut method of accomplishing this by creating a box and power clipping the pic into it to instantly arrive at the desired scale pic. I've experimented with doing this numerous times and can't duplicate the method. Does this ring a bell with anyone? I'd appreciate a step by step description if you know how to do what I'm talking about. It will literally save me hours each week. Thanks!!!
Click to expand...

You're on the right track.

Import the photo.

Draw a wire frame rectangle around some rectangular feature in the photo for which you know the height and width. Of the feature in the photo, not of the rectangle you're drawing. I always set a standard 16x24 framing square flat against the subject and draw a rectangle around that.

If necessary, distort, skew, rotate or whatever the photo so that the rectangular photo feature exactly fits into the wire frame rectangle on all four sides. If you take care to have the camera dead center and parallel to the subject there's seldom sufficient parallax to warrant this step.

Power Clip the photo into the wire frame rectangle.

Make the rectangle exactly the same size as the physical feature. If you enclosed a, say, 24"x36" feature in the photo then make the rectangle 24"x36". You can just as easily scale it as well. In this example if you make the rectangle 2"x3" you'll end up with a photo scaled 1" to 1'.

Extract the contents of the power clipped rectangle.

The photo should now be in scale, be it 1:1 or whatever scale you've chosen to use.
 
Joe Diaz

Joe Diaz

New Member
My process is similar to what bob does, minus the powerclip. I import the photo. draw a box over the element of the photo I measured. Then take the box and make it the size of the measurement. When you do this you will notice that the scale percentage of that shape has changed. Simply copy that percentage over to the size of the photo.
 
J Hill Designs

J Hill Designs

New Member
I draw the box like above, then double click the ruler, hit the scale button, input what your drawn box size is (say 1.456") and make it equal what it is supposed to be (say 48")
 
bob

bob

It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Joe Diaz said:
My process is similar to what bob does, minus the powerclip. I import the photo. draw a box over the element of the photo I measured. Then take the box and make it the size of the measurement. When you do this you will notice that the scale percentage of that shape has changed. Simply copy that percentage over to the size of the photo.
Click to expand...

The nice thing about doing the power clip is that it accounts for any vertical or horizontal parallax in the original photo. Because of this, more often than not, you have to scale the image differently horizontally and vertically. In other words, often the aspect ratio of the reference rectangle must change, not just a simple scale factor.

It's caused by not having the lens perfectly parallel to the subject when the photo was taken.

Doing it with the power clip is far more accurate than merely transferring a scale factor.

You can do exactly the same thing in Flexi using the Mask tool. I assume that Illustrator also has a similar feature.
 
Joe Diaz

Joe Diaz

New Member
bob said:
The nice thing about doing the power clip is that it accounts for any vertical or horizontal parallax in the original photo. Because of this, more often than not, you have to scale the image differently horizontally and vertically. In other words, often the aspect ratio of the reference rectangle must change, not just a simple scale factor.

It's caused by not having the lens perfectly parallel to the subject when the photo was taken.

Doing it with the power clip is far more accurate than merely transferring a scale factor.
Click to expand...

You do realize there is a vertical and a horizontal scale in Corel. As long as you don't have the scaling/sizing ratio locked (the little padlock icon) you scale the X and the Y independently. Therefor you have the exact same results and it is just as accurate. When you change the box to the actual measurements it will give you the vertical scale and the horizontal scale. Like I said you just copy over those percentages to the photo.

Trust me, my way works, as does yours. We do it all the time and I'm just sharing the method we use. There are many ways to skin a cat you know.
 
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