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importing a graphic logo and extruding or cutting to a surface 4

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Scarecrow

Scarecrow

Mechanical
Sep 10, 2001
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Hello
my boss has asked me to add our company logo to a face on one of our products. The product is injection molded, and thus would require an extruded shape to create the imprint in the final product.

Raised or embedded text is easy to do in S/W however i have a logo, that has been made in a graphics program like illustrator. Is it possible to do this?

Thanks
Gerry Bolda
 
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Depending on what machining method your machine shop uses, is important to engraving.
The problem we had with engraving letters is that the lines would not connect together and the CNC milling machine would stop. When you get your logo onto the part make sure, by zooming in and see if the lines connect. If you draw your logo with lines you will not have this problem because SolidWorks will let you know. I could not figure out how to put a logo into a part, sorry. If anyone has an answer I would like to know.
Bradley
 
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You would use the "Sketch from Drawing" ability of SW to get your logo into your part. Basically the best method I have found is to convert your logo to a DWG or DXF file, then bring that into SW.

I recently had to design a logo to go with a new product. The name was "Freedom" and it was thrown around to try to use either a graphical representation of an eagle or the Statue of Liberty. After doing a quick search on the internet, I found a Halloween pumpkin design of the Statue of Liberty's face and bronght that into SW. With SW01+ you can insert a picture into the background (on a plane) and use it as a basis for a sketch. Worked great. "Happy the Hare at morning for she is ignorant to the Hunter's waking thoughts."
 
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If you are trying to use the BMP file as a label or decal, you'll have to use PhotoWorks if you have it.

If you want to use it to extrude a feature in your model, then it sounds like you will have to Insert>Picture then manually trace the elements of the BMP file, using your Sketch Tools. Once this is done, you should be able to Scale the sketch to the size you need, and insert it into your model.

Anyone else have a better solution? "Happy the Hare at morning for she is ignorant to the Hunter's waking thoughts."
 
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I find it best to scale and position the picture first then trace it. If it is a company logo I save them as a library feature you can then import it into any part
 
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reswam,

To fix your .BMP problem I have not found any program that converts bmp to DXF or DWG. You really need to talk to Baren-boym about seeing if they would convert it to vector for you, since you don't want to buy the program. Because other than tracing or freehanding it I don't think you have a chose here.

You can view one of the Logo's I made for a friend that I met on comp.cad.solidworks. Look at the Bezel pic or DL the jpeg files of it. That was a complicated logo mostly because of the surface it is on. That logo was done mainly by freehanding splines.

I made most of my logos from Bitmaps and I freehanded them in SW. I didn't have that trace option and they turned out fine. Once I had the logo I put it in the Feature Palette for future use. If I needed a different size (this is where the Scale model option comes in handy) I would scale the logo to fit the part.

I hope that helps you, and maybe I helped someone else in the process.[rainbow]

Best Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP [spin]
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com
 
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If the logo was made in Illustrator it should be easy. Convert the logo (if in color) to Black and white and then convert the bmp to line art or vectors. Then save the file as a dxf. Open the file in SolidWorks and then convert entities or trace the lines. Another way (as some others have said) is to insert the bmp into SolidWorks and then trace the pic.
 
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Bitmap to DXF conversion: I agree with the other posters here that manually tracing "over" a bitmapped image is probably the quickest, best way to accomplish this. However...

There is an inexpensive CAD program available that has a unique "Auto Trace Bitmap Command" that can covert a bitmap file to a CAD format (DXF, etc.) that can be brought into SolidWorks. The product is DesignCAD, and this feature is available in the lowest cost ($89.95 list) version of the DesignCAD product line, DesignCAD Express Version 12 ( A 30 day trial version of DesignCAD 3D MAX ( which also has the “Autotrace” feature), can be downloaded at .

This isn’t anything you’re going to want to trade-in your SolidWorks for, but this is a neat feature (and it might just pay for the $90 price tag for the Express Version, depending on how much of this type of thing you have to do). I ran into DesignCAD when I discovered that it was the only product that would directly read a proprietary, obsolete CAD file format that the company I then worked for had some 5000+ drawings in…

I don’t know how much (or if) the bitmap autotrace feature has evolved/improved since the DesignCAD Pro 2000 version I have, but I’ve cut and pasted from the help screen of that version to give you some idea of the capabilities of this feature:


“The Auto Trace Bitmap command creates vector outlines of specified colors in bitmaps. This allows the image to be manipulated in DesignCAD. With a color or black and white scanner, a drawing or other art can be scanned and saved as a bitmap, then each color can be traced to produce a DesignCAD drawing.

Bring a bitmap into DesignCAD with the LOAD IMAGE FILE command. When the bitmap is displayed, select it and choose the AUTO TRACE BITMAP command from the TOOLS menu. The Auto Trace Bitmap dialog box appears.

Select the DETECT STRAIGHT LINES AUTOMATICALLY option or the DETECT CURVES AUTOMATICALLY option or both by clicking on the check box(es). The Straight Line option detects straight lines and smoothes the resulting vectors by removing intermediate points. The Curves option deletes curves in the bitmap and smoothes the result by drawing fewer points to represent them. Also, notice the Tolerance slider bars for the Straight Line Detection and Curve Detection. To change the tolerance for Straight Line or Curve Detection, click and hold the indicator using the mouse, then move the indicator closer to LOW or HIGH.

For both the Detect Straight Lines Automatically option and the Detect Curves Automatically option a low tolerance results in short line segments. Conversely, a high tolerance for these options results in longer line segments. In the Color Detection area of the Auto Trace Bitmap dialog box, the color to be traced is displayed on the Color of Region to Be Traced: button. To change color, click this button. The cursor turns into an eyedropper.

Either in the thumbnail image at upper-right of the dialog box or in the main drawing area, position the eyedropper on the item you want to trace. Click the mouse button. The sample is taken from the color at the eyedropper tip. The Color of Region to Be Traced: button will change to the color of the item you selected.

To change the tolerance for the color to be traced, click and hold the indicator using the mouse, then move the indicator closer to LOW or HIGH to change the tolerance. Changing the tolerance for the color to be traced changes the size of the sample or "footprint" that will be taken when you select the color to be traced. All of the colors that fall within the footprint are considered a single color.

The Low setting on the Tolerance slider bar for Color Detection will take a 1 pixel sample. The next mark to the right takes a 2-pixel sample, the next a 4, the next a 6, and finally the High setting takes an 8-pixel sample. If there are multiple bitmaps in the drawing, you can click the SELECT BITMAP TO TRACE button, then click on the bitmap you wish to trace.

Once you have selected the bitmap to be traced and set all of the tolerances to the desired levels, click the TRACE button. DesignCAD will trace the bitmap. If you like the results, click the CLOSE button to close the Auto Trace Bitmap dialog box. If you do not like the result, use the mouse to click anywhere in the drawing and press Ctrl+Z for the Undo command. Change the tolerances and click the TRACE button again. Once you are satisfied with the result, select the bitmap and delete it. The new vector image of the bitmap remains in the drawing.

Note: Auto Trace Bitmap can only trace and convert one color at a time. If the bitmap image has entities in more than one color, you must execute the Auto Trace Bitmap command for each colored item you want traced.”


You can well imagine that “tweaking” of the settings (and the quality and complexity of the bitmaps) has a significant effect on the end result, and the amount of “cleanup” (and redrawing) you’ll (inevitably) end up doing. You may find (as is often the case with this kind of thing) that it would have been quicker and better to “start from scratch” manually tracing the image as has been already been suggested (the voice of experience).

But, if you read this far, you must be interested. If someone has time and inclination to download the trial version and play with this feature, it would be great if you could report back your experience/impressions here…
 
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I have never used Illustrator but I frequently use Corel Draw. Since they are competitiors I'm sure they have the same features. I wasn't real clear (sorry) but in Illustrator (I assume you have Illustrator because you said the file was an Illustrator file) you should be able to convert the .bmp or any graphic file (jpg, tiff) into a black and white and then have the software automatically find the edges and convert the graphic to line art. Once it's been converted to lines you should be able to "save as" or "export" as a dxf. Corel will even export as a dwg. Once you have the dxf or dwg format it's easy enough to bring it into SolidWorks. The automatic edge finder isn't always perfect but it's usually close enough to get the job done. I have done a number of logos this way and it seems to work well. I have also done decorative things like pics of flowers and snowflakes and had excellent results.
 
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I had to do this exact process for the company I work for. Firstly place the new plane where you want to extrude your logo from. Two method I would recommend to use are:

1. Using a graphics tablet (wacom are the best) zoom into the area you would like to place the logo and using the sketch tool, trace out the logo using the pen on the tablet.

2. This might not have been suggested (I might have missed that msg, sorry if this is correct) go to insert - picture and insert a tiff drawing into the background, and trace this, it is not very accurate and awkward but at the right zoom level (and everyhing surpressed/hidden so you can see the background picture) it works very well.
To convert jpg/bmp to tiff go to imaging in accessories in the start menu, open the file and save it as a tiff file.

John
 
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