Making a picture part of a sketch
 

I'm wondering is there a way in which you can import a picture into inventor and then take that picture and make it part of the sketch, so you can cut it out of piece. My end goals is to be able to cut out our teams cougar logo onto a piece of sheet metal, I've seen this on some robots this year like 48, had on their wheel brackets, and 1902 had on their chassis.

Re: Making a picture part of a sketch
 

I found one way is to import a picture, scale it to proper size, then trace it with the spline feature. If there is a better way to do this, I would love to know.

Re: Making a picture part of a sketch
 

This is the method I've used in inventor and solidworks.

Re: Making a picture part of a sketch
 

Jaime,

Take a look at a program called Inkscape.


Roy

Re: Making a picture part of a sketch
 

That is the exact method I used to make the 48 cut outs in our wheel plates this year. The spline feature isn't that hard to use and lock down to get your desired graphics. It also helps to have access to a water-jet as you can draw the exact image without having to worry about machine standards and standard shapes.

Re: Making a picture part of a sketch
 

Did you make this image first in photoshop or something similar?

Re: Making a picture part of a sketch
 

Nope, I just did a Google image search for Jimmie Johnson's 48 logo and used one of the results. You can scale and rotate your image inside the sketch to get it sized to fit where you need it.

Example

Re: Making a picture part of a sketch
 

Wanted to give everyone a little update on how this worked and thank you for the help. First off this is the design I wanted to cut into a piece of sheet metal.



So I was really hoping there would be an easier way to do this than tracing the picture with spline, but I finally sat down and did it, and I got to say it wasn't as grueling as I thought it would be and I think it turned out great.



This is actually the assembly where I have two sheets the black one has the design cut out, and the yellow is just a back plate. I got that idea from 1902 so again thank you guys for the inspiration.

Re: Making a picture part of a sketch
 

if you're gluing the sheets together, how are you going to keep the random "floater" pieces attached to the rest of the cutout?

Re: Making a picture part of a sketch
 

Sorry about that I wanted to show you guy's this picture



which does have supports added in.

P.S. I don't plan on ever gluing 1/8" sheet metal together ;D