Creating radiator louvers

Bendragon1337 · Postby **Bendragon1337** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 8:00 am

Hey there.

I've been having problems with drawing radiator louvres like the ones on the following locomotive:

The louvers are basically the vents on the side of the locomotive to allow air to flow inside the locomotive while preventing water from getting inside.

I've been experimenting with gradients (with direct repetition, a portion of it would be jet black, the other would be transparent, creating the type of feel that i want when it comes to shadowing), but they only do half of the job.

Can you give me some pointers to accurately recreate them?

hulf2012 · Postby **hulf2012** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 9:56 am

Hello,
It's an interesting problem that you have.
I feel it is very simple to solve, but perhaps there is something that I'm missing.
If you could post a sample of what you have right now, then some one could give more feedback.

Some ideas:
- Create the shape of the louver. Fill with the color you require
- Duplicate it
- To the duplicate, change the fill with a gradient with white in an extreme and black in the other
- Change the opaccity of this gradient
- Duplicate your original louvre again
- Offset it with shift + Down arrow
- Change to an obscure tone of your original colour.
- Apply a bluring
- Duplicate the blured shape. Clean the blurring
- Offset this duplicate. Use it as a clip shape of the blurring shape
- Now you have the "cast shadow" of the louver.
- Align and stack all the shapes in a convenient way
- Group all the shapes
- Now you have your louver, which can duplicate, or make a tiled clone if you prefer.

I think it's more simple to visualize that wite it.
It should work :?:

Bendragon1337 · Postby **Bendragon1337** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 5:42 pm

I've attached the prototype .SVG document so that you can take a look at the method, and I think it's pretty sound.

Well, I wasn't sure about how to clean up the blurring effects, but it doesn't look all that bad, the louvers on the right is the original method that I used to use (and fully ajdusatable), the one on the left is the one I generated using your instructions to the best of my knowledge.

The one on the right reminds me of something along the lines of

Whereas the one on the locomotive is a little bit more complicated with the edges as it tends to blend between the two.

tylerdurden · Postby **tylerdurden** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 10:13 pm

Fast and dirty...

SVG Image

Horribly sloppy, but download/edit and you may get the gist.

Bendragon1337 · Postby **Bendragon1337** » Mon Jun 08, 2015 10:33 pm

Yeah, I don't think that's necessarily accurate, but you've given me something to think about.

hulf2012 · Postby **hulf2012** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 12:28 am

louversv2.svg: (36.47 KiB) Downloaded 197 times

Bendragon1337 wrote:I've attached the prototype .SVG document so that you can take a look at the method, and I think it's pretty sound.

Well, I wasn't sure about how to clean up the blurring effects, but it doesn't look all that bad, the louvers on the right is the original method that I used to use (and fully ajdusatable), the one on the left is the one I generated using your instructions to the best of my knowledge.

I looked your sample and I think the left version is good. Is not exactly what I was thinking. I tried to do be myself following my own advices, and the results aren't so good as yours :oops:

... but at end, if it works, it doesn't need fix... I've attached a modification to your sample version, just adding more blurred objects to simulate better the impact of the illumination over the light and shadow areas.

But sometimes, what can be done using a blurring filter, it can also be done using gradients. As far as I know, gradients are less "heavy to calculate" for the programs that can render SVG graphics. Now... It's easier to do?...I feel it depends of the human factor :roll:

Bendragon1337 · Postby **Bendragon1337** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 12:57 am

Hmm... the geometry of the ends really does seem to be confusing, but tylerdurden seems to be the closest in my opinion, his rounded edges gives a good reflect on the overall shape of it.

But that's not all, I think it has to be done using a blurring effect, but there needs to be a way of cutting off the blur further then the shape.

As for the blurred shape at the top, I can't really see it in any other picture. But having said that, on the picture in the first post there does seem to be a change of colour to make it a bit lighter then it normally is so I changed how the top looks relative to the background as well as adding a few blurs.

I've also managed to clip the filter by adjusting the general settings, not sure how it looks though.

I've also adjusted the actual shape too.

hulf2012 · Postby **hulf2012** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 1:08 am

Yes, my version have problems related to the top blurred shape. It also depends of the zoom level.

Your last version is better.
I think that the bottom shadow shape also needs to be blurred, clipped and/or put behind the other shapes.

Bendragon1337 · Postby **Bendragon1337** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 1:22 am

I agree, but the blur needs to be non-uniform in hardness.

When you apply a blur in inkscape, it's kinda limited on how that blur occurs and so is your ability to interact with it.

tylerdurden · Postby **tylerdurden** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 1:48 am

added a node to the gradient...

SVG Image

still sloppy geometry and no speculars, but the blend at the panel may be closer to the goal.

Lazur · Postby **Lazur** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 2:08 am

Modelled with blender for a reference.

: szll1.png (207.08 KiB) Viewed 4008 times

Probably not all the surfaces are bent to a curve?
How exactly that shape looks like?

Bendragon1337 · Postby **Bendragon1337** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 2:15 am

Hmm, I think you may have modelled that to suit your image more then modelling how it actually looks.

I feel the light is a bit too hard as well.

I'll try to model it later.

Lazur · Postby **Lazur** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 2:18 am

Now the bends are conic.

: szll2.png (204.53 KiB) Viewed 4004 times

A more flat variant.

: szll3.png (169.25 KiB) Viewed 4004 times

Bendragon1337 · Postby **Bendragon1337** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 2:44 am

If you look at the louvers, they're straight, I feel that you've done them curved.

I think the best thing you can do, is look at the vents on your microwave (I'm pretty sure all microwaves have the same sort of vents which shaped like the one I have shown you, the vents are normally placed on the top).

tylerdurden · Postby **tylerdurden** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 3:08 am

Look round-ended to me...

Bendragon1337 · Postby **Bendragon1337** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 4:19 am

Yes, the ends of the louvers are curved, but the main middle part is flat but with a transition to the flat surface.

At least, it's not as curved as in your example.

hulf2012 · Postby **hulf2012** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:17 am

Bendragon1337 wrote:I agree, but the blur needs to be non-uniform in hardness.

When you apply a blur in inkscape, it's kinda limited on how that blur occurs and so is your ability to interact with it.

Well, certainly have its limitations, but I'm not sure what is your point. It's possible to "cut" the blurring in some parts, using clipping paths. As a general example, I hope you can see the attached image:

: blurring_exm.png (18.01 KiB) Viewed 3936 times

Lazur:
come on!

How much time have you taken to make the louvers on Blender ?... Isn' t more easy to make with Inkscape?

Lazur · Postby **Lazur** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 8:06 am

hulf2012 wrote:Lazur:
come on! How much time have you taken to make the louvers on Blender ?... Isn' t more easy to make with Inkscape?

Ten minutes? And then another five minutes to change the lighting/texture setups in several renderings.
I know it should be in svg for the final output, but this way it's less like a guessing game.

Postby **druban** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:50 pm

I'm with Lazur on this one! Vastly faster to model and render in Blender than to simulate with gradients and masks in Inkscape. Specially such a repetitive object. There are a couple of different ways to stamp louvers into metal, but if you keep in mind that you are starting with a flat sheet of metal, cutting slots in it and then stretching some parts so they are raised up you can see that there has to be some rounding at the ends.

Bendragon1337 · Postby **Bendragon1337** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:53 pm

It depends really, blender produces rastor images rather then svg vector files, but I will take you up on that.

Postby **druban** » Tue Jun 09, 2015 5:58 pm

Yes of course, scalability is the main reason things are done in vector rather than in raster output programs, no argument there

hulf2012 · Postby **hulf2012** » Wed Jun 10, 2015 2:00 am

Related with Blender and scalability, since some time it's possible to render blender renders in svg format
http://goinkscape.com/use-blender-frees ... g-artwork/

But I haven't seen if can also translate gradients and/or filters.

Bendragon1337
At the end did you finished your design?

This is a read-only archive of the inkscapeforum.com site. You can search for info here or post new questions and comments at inkscape.org/forums

This is a read-only archive of the inkscapeforum.com site. This feature is no longer available.

InkscapeForum.com

Creating radiator louvers

Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Re: Creating radiator louvers

Who is online