Atom3D: how to use digitizing tablet to trace a shape?

[ReedMikel]

I have an inexpensive digitizing tablet (forget brand at moment) and would like to use it to trace the outline of a part into a 2D sketch in Atom3D. Any suggestions as to easiest way to do this? If Atom3D doesn’t directly support drawing tablets, I imagine one could use some sort of drawing program, trace the part, then save in some file format that can then be imported into Atom3D?

Appreciate any tips!

 

[simonb65]

Does Atom3D not support Tracing Images? If it does, just import an image (photo, scan, etc), then draw the sketches you need over the tracing image.

 

[DavidJ]

Tracing images is supported in Atom3D

 

[ReedMikel]

Tracing images is supported in Atom3D

Yes, I recalled that it did support tracing images, so placed item on my scanner and saved to a jpg, then opened tracing image in Atom3D, then used the spline tool in 2D sketch mode to trace the part’s shape. So I guess there is no direct support for using one’s digitizing tablet to trace an outline of a physical part in Atom3D? The scanner approach worked fine for this project, but I imagine there might be other times that a tablet would be handy. I guess one would have to use some sort of sketch or drawing program to go the digitizing tablet approach?

 

[HaroldL]

The nice thing about tracing images in Alibre or Atom is that you can scale the image before you start tracing, I have scanned objects and imported the resulting image into Alibre, scaled it to match the scanned part and was able to create actual sized models to match.

To find out about tablets do a forum search on "Wacom". There was some discussion about using a Wacom tablet with Alibre, but it was quite a while ago. Unless it doesn't matter, I don't think you'll be able to scale the traced result as easily as scaling an imported image. And you'll likely only be able to trace an image that fits on the tablet, so larger images may be out of the question.

Back in the day, there were two tablets that seemed to dominate a lot of drafting offices, GTCO Calcomp and Summagraphics. (I think GTCO was bought out by Calcomp.) They were used for AutoCAD 2D drafting and AEC (Architecture design). You needed a lot of desk space for them too.

 

[ReedMikel]

Yes, I did like how easy it was to scale the image to the exact size! I made it easy for myself by including a small plastic ruler as part of the scanned image. Once you load the tracing image in Atom3D, just click the [Calibrate] button and then click on two marks an inch apart...