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mkruer
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Help with a Project

Post by mkruer »

Ok guys/gals, I usually don’t ask for personal favors, but I need someone with vector graphics expertise. I made a VG image of part of a circuit board, and currently its black lines, with a transparent background. I need to invert this into a white background with transparent lines, and I can’t seem to do it.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Windows doesn't know how to open a .eps file, and I don't know either; so I guess I can't help you with vector graphics :), but I've been designing PCB's for 25 years; so maybe I can help you at the level of like, what are you trying to do...? ;-) The usual format for PCB's is Gerber.
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Post by klauss »

What format can you open?
I can convert it... no sweat.
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Post by chrisdn »

What format is the file in and what software was used to design it? Depending on the file type I can help however you'd like.
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Post by mkruer »

EPS is a very common format. Its what PDF was based upon. You should be able to open it with Adobe Illustrator 8+ or any thing that supports EPS from around 2000.
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Post by Ryder P. Moses »

Check your PMs.
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Post by chrisdn »

is it an illustrator eps/corel eps? Sometimes an eps doesn't transfer so easily because of the seperation layers
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Post by st_jack »

EPS stands for Encapsulated Post Script, PDF's are not based on them, however - it uses similar technology. EPS is a vector file format that should open in Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, Corel Draw, Photoshop (its becomes a raster drawing then), and then any other piece of crap software that can handle it.

Vector art us great because it is resolution independent. Unfortunately, not every piece of software will support them.

If it was constructed in a non standard software package, the dificulty may lie within the post script itself. That's a whole other story.

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Post by Halleck »

Sorry mate, can't help you unless it's an SVG. (I use Inkscape for my vector work.)
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Post by GAlex »

oh my :shock:

noone of you has a linux install?

if it is so... you can open any eps for viewing with ghostscript or anything similar, and for manipulating/editing with the (argh) beutifull 8) XFIG!

(for thos unable to remember their first slackware installation before '90s it's an X app made with athena widget with ugly look... but it works.
usually it's part of the tex package (namely tetex-xfig if i'm correct).

sorry I can't help you mkruer, since my linux install is ... well ... gone with the hard disk.
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Post by rockstar »

It's a mess Inskape being unable to open or import *.eps format. At least you're able to save files with this format. Unfortunatly the GIMP plug-in also won't open this file although GIMP supports *.eps. Anyways, I'll find away to work around this problem...

mkruer, just tell me what kinda format you want and the file will be uploaded in no time.

[edit]

Nah, damn... missed Ryders post. Guess, the problem's already solved.

Btw. *.eps can be opened with GIMP when using the Ghostscript plug-in for *.pdf and postscript files.

[/edit]
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Post by mkruer »

Sorry for the delayed response.

Here is what I am trying to do. I need to invert the circuit so I can use it as a mask in a flash animation. In flash I intend to use a gradient background that shifts using a palate cycle or what ever flashes equivalent would be. This is to give the illusion of energy flowing through the circuit. Examples of this method can bee seen in Tron and other Animated films. I though making a VG file would be better, but it looks like just creating at raster image will work better at this point.

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I dont know!???
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

If worse comes to worst, yeah, you could even use Gimp to capture screenshot, then change the color of the tracks to give them alpha=0.
But Flash being vector graphics friendly, I wonder if the vector graphics format it accepts allows you to define the color the tracks are drawn with to be RGBA...
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Post by rockstar »

yeah chuck, the screenshot idea is definitely the simplest solution for a workaround and I guess, it would not even be more quality loss than the rasterization.

mkruer, you should have created this circuit by drawing the backround instead of the lines. Unfortunatly there is no way - as far as I know - for VG-Editors to invert those lines. The point is you have painted black lines on a page (what Image Manimpulation Programms would call a canvas) and you have no background the lines could be inverted with... or something (my english sucks, I know).
For Flash VGs are the best way to go. So what you can do is to mask the "energy img" with the "curcuit lines".
Anyways, I'll send the file (*.eps) to a friend being an experienced flash coder and he'll check out how to handle those lines without inverting them. It's possible that's what he already told me... I'll upload the files soon.

[edit]

alright... it works, but i'm afraid it will be a shitload of work. You'll will have to redraw all the curcuit lines with pathes... check out this tutorial: http://www.biorust.com/tutorials/detail/190/en/

Here's an example with one line redrawn and energy impulse added: http://www.deeplayer.com/rockstar/uhm/uhm.html

[/edit]
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Post by mkruer »

Thank for the effort. There is really no way I can tell you how much I appreciate this. A simple dumb little project and has ended up eating up more time then just about any other project.

Originally when I made the circuit, it was a really crappy jpg. I wanted to tract the lines, and I though I would use a trick in flash to only display the background image when the image had this color. This is a standard practice in raster graphics. But apparently flash does not offer that type pallet subtraction. SO the next option was to take the VG image, and convert it into a raster image with say about 1200DPI, then negative the image and re import it into adobe and use adobes live trace to make the inverted image. The problem with this is that the new VG would end substantially larger then the original (live trace sucks for technical drawings.)
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Post by Privateer Ferrius »

EPS is Adobe Illustrator. The best program for Windows for vector graphics, and arguably overall. I can use Illustrator to convert it to PDF if you would like, but I do not know how useful this would be to you.
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Post by rockstar »

effort, eh? well, my mate needed about 10 minutes to deal with the problem, but ran into a proplem himself.. so anyways, you'll never stop learning ^^
I'm glad I could help you... in some way at least.
I experienced that most projects you start - no matter who skilled you are - always end up in weird problems noone expected before even if you think it's routine work. I guess, you all know what I'm talking about...
We've checked some alternative methods to create a curcuit board with random animated impulses and finally got to the conclusion that code is no option and drawing the whole stuff in Flash with pathes is the most time saving way to go altough it's pain in the ass. Unlucky, but Flash is a bastard... g'damn I heard this so often the last days ^^

My advise would be to think about different ways to handle the project. Maybe there's another option than Flash depending on what this project is going to be used for. Otherwise the idea of rasterize the img with high dpi is maybe the best idea to get a sharp-edged mask for your work.
Would be kind if you can show us the final result...

Btw. *.eps is NOT Adobe only although they've created this format. There are several other VG-programms out there - I don't want to say ALL - able to handle this format. Inkscape is at least able to save files as *.eps and GIMP with Ghostscript can handle both ways (although it's useless 'cause it's using rasterized gfx). Concerning Flash the *.eps-support is awesome just because Macromedia is part of the Adobe company since several years. You know how's the rabbit running that way, eh?!

Quite funny, but although I already knew a lot of things about the topic I learned several interesting new things just because of your problem, mkruer. As said, you'll never stop learning ^^
I was very surprised to realise that Inkscape's default format - *.svg(z) - is a VG-format that can be handled very easy by HTML.
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Post by Halleck »

It seems like the easiest thing to do now is to use illustrator to export a high-rez raster version (better than screenshotting it), and edit that in gimp or photoshop to get the needed alpha layer effects. Certainly less time-consuming than re-drawing the whole damn thing in flash.

@rockstar: Yes, SVG is a W3C standard for vector graphics on the web, which is what makes the xml-based format so appealing. (Firefox 1.5 already has native SVG rendering support.)
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Post by mkruer »

Because there was a question to the validly of the format, here it is in svg format. Rename the txt to svg
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Post by mkruer »

I finally completed the negative mask of the circuit.

Now the only thing that needs to be done is to create a squiggly background line and pallet cycle the drawling. This will create the illusion that energy is pulsing through the circuit at different speeds. The question is "how do you do it in flash?"

Edit: I think I may has a solution, but its not "elegant" Basicaly draw the lines by hand then offset them and remove the line from the next frame
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