Why are vehicle templates used vs photos and measurements?

[mmblarg]

This is purely for curiosity's sake - I was wondering why you might choose to use a vehicle template over taking pictures and measurements of the vehicle itself?

For my company, we rely solely on taking various measurements and proportionally resizing pictures in Flexi; however, we don't touch full wraps as a general policy, so I was curious if this perhaps makes the difference in design process.

Thanks in advance for your input!

 

[2B]

for us, we prefer and do all we can to physically touch the vehicle before designing.
as you list, we take photos and scale to size.

this also allows you to see if there are any aftermarket / 3rd party modifications.
and/or any areas that are damaged/repaired or will be an issue

We use templates for quick sizing / quoting and when we are shipping the material.
even then we try to oversize the prints, as most templates are 2D and do not take into account the contours of a 3D

 

[AKwrapguy]

This is purely for curiosity's sake - I was wondering why you might choose to use a vehicle template over taking pictures and measurements of the vehicle itself?

For my company, we rely solely on taking various measurements and proportionally resizing pictures in Flexi; however, we don't touch full wraps as a general policy, so I was curious if this perhaps makes the difference in design process.

Thanks in advance for your input!

We use templates and have never really had a problem except when a client has added an aftermarket part. As long as they are scaled properly and you get the right one thet're usually pretty close, Art Station ones are usually spot on and have the different models that have the plastic moldings, bed sizes, cab sizes etc...

From I understand there are several reasons why you wouldn't want to use a photo over a template. One of the biggest issues is the perspective often taken is off which will lead to sizing and placement issues. Your camera has to be perfectly parallel to the vehicle which is almost impossible to do with out a tripod and a whole system. The other issue is that most non professional cameras have lenses that are slightly fish eyed also meaning that if you are able to get a perfect straight on shot, you still have to deal with the lens issue.

 

[Jester1167]

I got used to using templates before wraps were even possible. We used them to show customers the scale of cut vinyl graphics on their vehicle and then price the jobs. During that process I learned how to deal with the discrepancies. When wraps came along it was fast and easy especially if you kept a majority of your design vector based.

After all that experience It always seemed like a lot of extra work to take high res images of all 4 sides, create masks, and lens effects. and deal with each side separately. In Corel I can design with all 4 sides in one file.

Image attached is working in Corel with 2 full size version fleshing out ideas for a color change.

 

[letterman7]

Very early I used templates only because digital cameras weren't around yet and I couldn't wait a week for film to be processed. I never work from templates anymore.. case in point - doing an ambulance for a new startup upfitter on Monday. They sent me the templates the company used to spec with - lights, that sort of thing. Had all the measurements (from Dodge.. it's a Promaster), everything that I should need to scale. Except it wasn't even close. I double checked against a stock Promaster and found huge discrepancies in measurements. Like most others mentioned, having the actual vehicle gives you the chance to check everything out and make some solid measurements from known points. The only thing you need to watch is that you take the photos dead on - perfectly perpendicular to each side or you'll get a bit of parallax error compounding in. And templates won't account for curves in panels.. photos with measurements will.

 

[Jester1167]

It doesn't matter whether you use templates or photos, you should always check the actual vehicle out in person or have the client send images. Clients will sometimes leave out important details and often, there are 10 or more variations on the same vehicle especially for trucks and vans.

 

[Jester1167]

Here's a visual to help when creating your own templates.

Image Template Creation

• Jester1167
• Jan 4, 2018
• 1

 

[Jester1167]

Here is a link to a PDF that directly address the accuracy of the major template manufactures produced by my friend Rob Ivers.

Dropbox - Using Vehicle Templates.pdf

 

[Gene@mpls]

When I started [cold, never had been in a sign shop before Sign-a-rama tried to sell me a franchise and let me tour a half dozen of their shops in the TwinCities], I bought the equipment I thought I needed from a local dealer [he actually was very truthful and sold me good equipment that I still have -except for a Fargo thermal printer... that was a dud] and after I taught myself Flex from scratch [and a hour instruction session] and acquainted myself with equipment , I bought an early digital camera... that recorded to floppy discs. In 22 years I have only had one customer say 'I didn't know that it was going to look like that'. I offered to try to hardwire into his brain but he declined. Have never used a template. It has been a long strange trip but I am happy, semi-retired and semi-wealthy. And semi lucid.

 

[spooledUP7]

Here is a link to a PDF that directly address the accuracy of the major template manufactures produced by my friend Rob Ivers.

Dropbox - Using Vehicle Templates.pdf

That was really cool. Thank you for re-dropping that here. I have used many templates and none are better than Stanley! I prefer Mr. Clipart because I feel as though their templates account for body curvature and I have yet to get one wrong from them. Not the case with Bad Wraps. The Bad Wraps does not account for perspective and curvature and I have had more than one issue with falling short thanks to their templates. The Bad Wraps is only good for realistic rendering and if used should be backed up by hard numbers.

I used to do a lot of design and print work for a local wrap company who neither had an artist or a printer and it was very frustrating getting accurate numbers and photos. I would often get the most random measurements with no indication of their ID or OD location points and more often than not I would get inexplicably stacked series of measurements without an overall dimension to accompany them. Despite repeated sizing issues, and several pleadings by me for a systematic approach to measurements we never found our stride working together and ultimately I had to back away from our working relationship. I felt responsible for the sizing mistakes even though they were not my mistakes and honestly my soul suffered immensely because of this communication issue.

My tip is to composite the actual vehicle with the templates backed by hard numbers from Stanley. Also, never trust someone for measurements who has never designed and wrapped a vehicle unless you like your soul to suffer.

Whenever I visit a vehicle to be wrapped I will either print the template, or sketch a very loose version of the vehicle and then proceed to define measurement points with specific measurements that can later be translated by anyone. For instance, if the measurement wraps around a corner then I draw a curved arrow to trigger where the location starts and ends. Then I take profile pics with a 12x12 square magnet on the corners (learned this from my buddy Eric). Later you simply need to resize the photo until the squares are 12x12. Having two corners helps you get further accuracy over a single square.

If you are going to create crossover graphics from fenders to hood then I use application tape to create simple templates for joining points and angle changes. You can then later rebuild this template in scale and have a higher predictability for the output.

Happy wrapping! and YES use templates if available.

 

[AKwrapguy]

Also, never trust someone for measurements who has never designed and wrapped a vehicle

I used to deal with this a lot with an agency. The would sent over artwork for a vehicle wrap with no aspect ratio or measurements. Also would never take into account that it was a 3D object and would design like a 2D website image.