Req: Isometric and Perspective grids

[photoken]

The Grid can be a very useful drawing aid. I think its usefulness would be enhanced if we could create isometric and perspective grids.

Isometric
Since the "Grid Distance" can currently be independently set for the x and y axes, adding a "Grid Angle" entry field for the x-axis would accommodate this.

Perspective
I realize that this one is a lot more complicated. It would need to (at a minimum) provide settings for:

1. Choice of 1-, 2-, or 3-point perspective.
2. Four Vanishing Point locations:
   1. Top
   2. Bottom
   3. Left
   4. Right
   5. (The Center VP would be automatically set when "1-point Perspective" is chosen.)
3. Vanishing Point Distance. These fields would need to accommodate very large values, since 2-point perspective drawings usually have one of the VPs at a distance of 4x to 7x the width of the image.
4. Horizon Line placement (vertically, relative to the Eye Point).
5. Grid Spacing. This would essentially be a value specifying the number of "rays" emanating from each active VP.

Additional enhancements would include saving a Grid as a Preset, and choosing which grid to show when selecting View...Alignment Helpers...Show Grid.

[greenmorpher]

Would be very good.

Cheers, Geoff

[Herbert123]

Although a built-in perspective grid would be awesome (especially one in which objects would align to the grid), here is a two-point perspective template which makes it relatively easy to build your own.

Select the group to move the perspective up and down, and select the rays layers to move the perspective points horizontally. The nifty thing is that you can select the rays layer, and by switching to the rays tool, you can easily adjust the number of perspective lines. Since I created a virtual copy the entire perspective grid automatically updates on both sides.

Move both object off the page to the far left and right for more shallow perspective. You will have to adjust the number of rays to your needs.
Feel free to change the pattern of the stroke, and the colour to your personal preferences.

To rotate the entire grid, select the group "Two Point Perspective Grid", and use the rotate tool. To reset rotation, set the rotation value in the layer properties to zero. Of course, the individual rays can be rotated individually as well with the rotate tool. You may want to define your custom tool bar to work with the grid.

Lock the grouped layer for editing, selecting, and transformation before drawing. And put it at the top of the layer stack. While drawing it is handy to activate auto guide alignment, in order to snap to corner points of previously drawn objects. Unfortunately, no snapping is available for grouped vector objects, and this means the grid cannot be snapped to when drawing objects, unless you put the objects on the same level as the grid - which is something to be avoided, of course.

I hope at some point guides will become much more flexible in Photoline, and support for perspective guide grid sets, easy controls, multiple guide sets, and so on, will be come available to us.

[Herbert123]

What a shame: the rays are limited to only 100 lines, which is insufficient for more shallow perspective grids. I noticed before that Photoline has these limits everywhere. If I want 1000 rays, why not accommodate this? Same for a lot of the layer effects, and adjustment layers. Textures are the same: I can only go up to 1024 in width and height.

Would be great if some of these limits would be increased, or perhaps completely removed. In Cinema4d this is elegantly solved by displaying a 'stress' colour when the user goes beyond the 'suggested' max value:



In short, afford me the responsibility to go beyond 'safe' values when needed.

[photoken]

Although a built-in perspective grid would be awesome (especially one in which objects would align to the grid), here is a two-point perspective template which makes it relatively easy to build your own.

123, that sounds awesome! Thanks for providing this. I won't have a chance to look at it until much later today, but it sounds remarkably similar to a template I once devised for CorelDraw a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Once again proving that great minds think alike!

I hope at some point guides will become much more flexible in Photoline, and suppgcort for perspective guide grid sets, easy controls, multiple guide sets, and so on, will be come available to us.

I'm making a distinction between grids and guides. Not saying your thoughts about guides aren't valid, but there are some subtle differences between the two, and this request is specifically for grids.

[bkh]

Although a built-in perspective grid would be awesome (especially one in which objects would align to the grid), here is a two-point perspective template which makes it relatively easy to build your own.

One should be aware, though, that this is not a normal perspective grid – the grid cells don't represent square floor tiles. (To achieve this, the rays would have to intersect the page borders at equal distances.) This also explains why, in your example file, there are not enough grid lines near the horizon.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[photoken]

Now that I've had a chance to think about this some more, I realize that my initial description of the proposed Isometric Grid was somewhat naïve -- the Isometric Grid would need the Horizontal and Vertical grid lines we have now and an additional angled grid lines whose spacing is the same as the spacing of the x-axis grid lines. If a vertical line is considered to be 0 degrees, that additional grid would need to allow specifying these discreet angles: -60d, -45d, -30d, +30d, +45d, and +60d.

[Herbert123]

Although a built-in perspective grid would be awesome (especially one in which objects would align to the grid), here is a two-point perspective template which makes it relatively easy to build your own.

One should be aware, though, that this is not a normal perspective grid – the grid cells don't represent square floor tiles. (To achieve this, the rays would have to intersect the page borders at equal distances.) This also explains why, in your example file, there are not enough grid lines near the horizon.

Cheers

Burkhard.

True, my version only assists in setting up a classic two-point perspective. It is not really a grid.