tracing pen?

[Johnny Best]

So you can't trace it with paper and pencil because you have no talent to then get the information into your computer to cut the vinyl, so your looking for AI to do the work. Man, this industry has taken a downward spiral as far as talent. Sad.

 

[DL Signs]

All you should need is accurate dimensions and a decent enough photo to see what you need to do, and draw it. I do it all the time, it's even part of my job description. No different than someone who doesn't have a vector of their logo, you get an image to work off of and draw it. If it's large signage, do the artwork at half or quarter scale, then just blow it up to size. I wouldn't think I'd have much value in the sign industry if I couldn't create, or re-create artwork. If something is extremely faded you go with your best interpretation of the color it's supposed to be and finalize the actual colors you'll use with the customer before printing (or ordering vinyl), and if it's all vector, and you drew it, you know exactly what to edit to fill the customer's needs. It's all worth learning if you can't do it

 

[netsol]

Disagree. I've done this so many times with excellent results.

Perspective is no issue for flat images.
All you need is the size of the original sign.
Get a good DSLR / Mirrorless. a minimum of a 50mm lens.
Square up your shot - I.e direct centre of the sign, even if it's over head. Do your best to fill most of the frame.
Photoshop & lightroom have excellent tools to fix the geometry (you can draw lines on each size of the sign so the software knows exactly what to square up.)
Crop the image to suite the sign and save.
Open a new artboard with the exact size of the sign.
load up the photo of the sign
resize to fit the artboard.
Do this properly and it'll be near perfect.

we have mounted a camera from the ceiling, squared the camera so optical plane is parallel to the floor
(we have printed a grid on a 4'x8' sheet of coro and laid on the floor, easy to adjust for no parallax.

 

[GB2]

I googled it. It says it's a $16,500 tool. Are there variations of it or do you just use it a lot ??

It's more expensive than that....I have it for a specific purpose, which is not typically sign tracing, and I use it all the time but it will trace accurately the way he was describing.

 

[Boudica]

I have a Prodim and yes, it will trace the way you are describing.

Trying to visualize what this is, so I looked it up and watched a video - they were making a template of a counter top. very cool!
Seems a little over kill for what the OP is trying to do though.

 

[GAC05]

Prodim - new to me, but looks similar to the scanner/tracers that build 3d models. I think the photo idea will get you there.
I had a customer with a brand new Tundra come in - wanted something similar to the badge on the hood as a decal on the rear. I took a photo of the badge and sent him a few samples:

He said he liked the one on the top if I could change the color of the 'force' lettering to something other than black to make it easier to read...........................

 

[Boudica]

Prodim - new to me, but looks similar to the scanner/tracers that build 3d models. I think the photo idea will get you there.
I had a customer with a brand new Tundra come in - wanted something similar to the badge on the hood as a decal on the rear. I took a photo of the badge and sent him a few samples:
View attachment 162010

He said he liked the one on the top if I could change the color of the 'force' lettering to something other than black to make it easier to read...........................

Isn't the one on top the photo you took?

 

[GAC05]

Isn't the one on top the photo you took?

yes it is, those are my fingers in the reflection

 

[Boudica]

yes it is, those are my fingers in the reflection

Does he want your fingers in the design?

 

[GAC05]

Does he want your fingers in the design?

Maybe, they are nice looking fingers.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

we have mounted a camera from the ceiling, squared the camera so optical plane is parallel to the floor
(we have printed a grid on a 4'x8' sheet of coro and laid on the floor, easy to adjust for no parallax.

Netsol you have too much engineer in you. I drink 2 beers to stop the shakes then take a picture with my phone. Works great

 

[Evan Gillette]

Yeah camera should produce satisfactory results, If needed you can always print or use a know grid size in the background to correct geometry. Like others have mentioned, don't overcomplicate it.

 

[unclebun]

ok. It is layered vinyl. I would like to just trace around. the colors are all faded so a pic doesnt work. So there is no way to trace with a mouse/pen?

If the colors are all so faded that you can't discern them in a photo, then the pen you need is called a Sharpie. Draw the lines you want to be able to see at the edges of the faded layers of vinyl. Then take a squared up photo with something in the picture that has known dimensions. Use the squaring function in your software (Corel Draw, Photoshop, others as suggested before) to make sure all perspective error is gone from the photo (Corel can deal with spherical aberration too. Don't know about Photoshop). Then draw out whatever it is in your vector software.

You'll save $16,997.01 over buying the digitizing pen.

 

[letterworks]

Depending on the type of sign involved a photograph will not capture flat, accurate results due to the effects of perspective.

A photo is no big deal if you're just taking a reference photo of some flat panel sign whose graphics can be easily reproduced. If it's a more complicated repair job then a photo won't do much good. For instance if you have a channel letter sign with some complicated joined script and the trim-capped face is broken it will take one of two sources to make a new face. One source is the original art files. The other is making a pattern and then using that to manually cut a new face. A photograph of the damaged face won't yield anything that registers correctly with the rest of the sign. The replacement face won't fit properly.

Post processing a sign photo to remove effects of barrel distortion and perspective will work only so well. You can get really close by using a good DSLR mounted on a tripod (and using the right combo of lens and shooting distance). But nothing will yield a perfect fit thanks to the foreshortening effects of perspective.

It would be really cool if there was a kind of device that could draw/digitize large real world graphical objects and capture them into the digital realm without using a tablet surface. As far as I know nothing like that exists. I think a tablet-free pen would at least need to be connected to some home base device that accurately tracked the pen's location in 2D/3D space as well as record input data when one or more buttons are pressed.

I have a system like that but never pulled the trigger on the $1000 software....maybe I will with this new letter cutting business but never did for my acrylic fab business.

Visually, getting good with the photo technique is probably good enough. The pen systems aren't perfect either.

The good camera, lens database to correct distortion, and then using software to deskew and scale to a known height and width should be very good. I'd guess less than 1/8 off at the worst....the digitizer could be +/- 1/16 or slightly better but is that worth a few thousand?

 

[Johnny Best]

I use a 35mm lens on a Nikon D500 and WYSIWYG with less distortion. A 35mm lens is better at keeping things right more than any other lens.

 

[letterworks]

Just as a follow up to this re: accuraccy.

I had a job come in this week that was recreating shelves from a limo's bar. Since we have 12x12" tiles, I used those as my reference and just used my phone camera (I did have some barrel distortion but I deemed it not enough to look up how to correct).

My process was:
1) Take photo. obviously as straight above and straight at the floor in this case.
2) bring into GIMP editor. I think the more modern corel can do this, but my computer is running x5 and I didn't see the right stuff.
3) crop close to, but slightly wider than, the reference corners. In my case, a 2 x 2 or 2 x 3 grid of the tiles. Ideally, the reference shape is larger than the shape to trace.
4) Shift-P for the perspective transform tool. Bring the 4 corners of the gird that shows up in-line with your reference corners.
5) Apply the tool and save the result.
6) Load into Coreldraw or other vector program.
7) Scale the photo to the size of the reference shape (24 x 36" for most of these for me)
8) Trace the shape and cut a test.

All pieces were within 1/8", I will cut final pieces with holes for cupholders from the traced shapes. If I obsessed on the tracing (or actually traced the parts and used the picture which would be flatter) and reduced the barrel distortion, I think 1/16" or better accuracy would have been possible.

 

[netsol]

Netsol you have too much engineer in you. I drink 2 beers to stop the shakes then take a picture with my phone. Works great

i like your idea better

 

[jfiscus]

This sounds more like a job for knifeless tape and/or the tape that is made for you to cut on with a knife. Put the tape down and lay the vinyl over it with extra. Pull the knifeless tape or hand-draw it over the cutting tape and it is done.
You could also use a low tack mask and apply it over the old vinyl, do a rubbing, remove it and apply it to the new vinyl then cut it by hand.