creating gauges in adobe illustrator?

[Wing_Nut]

Has anyone created their own dials, instruments, and/or gauges within Abobe Illustrator or similar application? I am looking to create dials for 1/48th scale and then use the Waldron punch. I have had some success already but if someone else has experience, i'd love some pointers.

Thanks in advance.

[urloony]

I think you may be onto somthing here. A possibility might be to scan a copy of a cockpit from a book or something and then print out and cut out your guages. The only problem is you would need a high quality printer like a color laser in order to get the high resolution at such small a scale. I've done a similar thing with 1/5 scale R/C planes that I have built. I would recommend Adobe photoshop instead of illustrator for the process I've suggested. Illustrator is hard to use unless you have good experience and really want to create each guage from scratch.

[Wing_Nut]

I appreciate your reply and agree that Illustrator is a more involved application than Photoshop but the advantage is that with Illustrator (and other vector based image applications) no matter how much i scale the image, it remains perfect, no jagged edges. I'm pretty sure that Waldron and decal companies are using similar applications for their products.

As for printing, i figured that i would create a bunch of standard gauges and then duplicate them in groups within an 8 x 10 frame set then upload that file to an online photo company to print. For a couple of dollars per 8 x 10 print, i'll have enough gauges to last me for quite a while.

[jungle]

Illustartor is the application to go with, no doubt about it!

It's actually not as involved as Photoshop.

most of the newer epson ink jet printers have a high enough resolution to do a great job of printing small scales. look for printers with 1440 ppi/dpi or better in the ink jet category. If you use a black and white laser printer just make sure your blacks are solid! Color laser printers seem to have loose registration at small sizes unless of course it is a very expensive, or brand new laser printer

[Bacillus]

I've kicked around a similar idea before, but just never took it to the next level and tried it out.

My thoughts are to simply immitate what the photo-etch companies do. First lay out an entire instrument panel in Illustrator [i prefer Macromedia Freehand myself :-)] and print it. Then, create an overlay of thin sheet styrene with holes created by your punch & die set. The styrene is on top and the instrument print out is attached from behind.

As a further extension to the idea, you could use a second print of the instrument panel as a guide. Attach the print to the styrene with rubber cement and punch out each dial face; you're now left with a styrene panel with perfectly placed holes. Then just peel off the remaining paper and use a new print out for the actual instruments, as described previously.

I imagine that attaching small discs of paper to each dial face would be quite tedious, but I must admit that my idea sounds like a lot of work, too!

Just my 2 cents,

Nate

[MarkusN]

Since you want to scale down jaggies are no concern, so working with pixel-based programs is no problem. Just make sure that the final picture has at least the pixel-resolution that your output device offers.

That means you can start from photos of the instruments if you have them.

If you have to work from scratch, a vector based program will be easier.

When it comes to printing, ink jet or thermo-sub is the way to go. Color lasers simply are not good at reproducing fine detail in color. They are great machines to print solid color areas (such as business graphics), but fine detail and subtle shading are not their forte.

Using a photo lab sounds like a great idea as well, but photo stock is quite thick, so in that case I'd say the instrument has to go behind a punched bezel / panel.

[Wing_Nut]

I'm going to see what i can do with Illustrator and then test it at a local printer and also printed as a digital photo. I'll also scan in images and manipulate them in photoshop, because if that works satisfactorily, that will save a ton of time. I appreciate all of your feedback guys.

thanks.

[Andy Mullen]

In addition to Illustrator, there are cheaper vector based apps out there for example Corel Draw... then again I would probably use my AutoCAD to produce the gauges.

HTH

[bosshog]

I would go with Illustrator!

It is much easier to use when producing objects or artwork that need to be exact sizes, stroke weights, color build ups, horizontally and vericaly in line. Plus you can make your own custom color swatches and save them in the Color Palette (i.e FS #'s, both in spot color, CMYK, RGB, etc.) to use not only for gauges, but for custom decals. Not that I have made custom sheets yet, but I know plenty about pre-press.

Also, you can output them (your decals or gauges) directly from Illustrator. No Quark Xpress, no Photoshop, nuthin---plus you will have vector based art that you can scale to any size with out losing resolution.

Print quality to the novice Illustrator user will be superior to the same person using photoshop...Ga-ron-teed!

I have a Canon i450 printer ($79 USD) that kicks ***! For gauges I would recomend 4"x6" Photo Paper Plus Glossy. Thinner than the average print photos from the drug store, but just a bit thicker than your normal color laser printer paper. I think it would work amazingly.

Hope this help, and good luck!

[bosshog]

...oh yeah, you can "Place" your photo reference(s) directly into Illustrator to use as a template for you gauges. Or anything else for that matter...nose art, tail codes, insignias...later

[Wing_Nut]

i guess it's off to the bookstore to find an Illustrator book. I'll post the results with pics soon.

Thanks again for all of the replies.