Info on door material

[Francis Samson]

Hi guys, I would like to start by wishing every one a happy new year and a lots of drawing!
Ok, I need to know if there is a way to "Had" some species in the door/drawer designer tab from canestoga? I know that we can use any kind of material in the Thermwood section but there is no "matching drawer" to be applied to and to build a full kitchen by hading drawer face to each cabinet manually would take for ever!Has per the Canestoga section, obviously the system will take in consideration the wood that is specified in the "detail for cut list" when printing the cut list in question but as per the customers view, the rendered drawing of the kitchen or what ever as to be build will be in a different wood finish, unless if it's already in the general species from "Canestoga"! Where i am, in Quebec, customers are "Pine" freak and it seems to be the only wood that they want!!! But i can't show them a 3D drawing since it's not in the system!

I tried to pass by the main DIR like: C:\Program Files\Thermwood\eCabinet Systems\doors\Conestoga\FINISHES , but with no success! Would there be a way to simply had the finish that we like (I founded tons of wood finishes on the net that would look amazing with what we do with this soft) for this matter?

So, this was my question! If you could help me with this and share some advise on how to, I would appreciate a lot.

Thanks
Francis S
Au Vieux Bois Noeuds

[Vince Lisanti]

Hello Francis,

If I am understanding you correctly you can acheive this with the match texture button. When you select your Conestoga door and drwer fronts just make sure you select "Purchase Unfinished" if you are purchasing through them.

Than while in the Cabinet Editor LOAD ITEM, DISPLAY CUBES,SELECT IMAGE, ADD IMAGE, Put the image you want to use in a folder ( I created one called MY Wood Pics) than it will always be there for future use. Than go back and define size. Any size will work here so just make it 12 x 12 x 1 , than hit OK. Your display cube image will now likely be inside of the cabinet so right click on the cab door and click visibilty HIDE PART . Than click on your display image ( it should have green cross hash marks on it). While holding the control key and your right mouse button pull the display cube off to the side of the cab.

Next right click on the cab door and click visibilty RESTORE ALL. Right click on the door hit MATCH TEXTURE
than left click on your display cube and the door will match the image. Do the same for your drawer front .

I attached a screen shot doing this with a knotty alder sample.



Hope this helps

Vince

CCS

[Francis Samson]

Tks Vince for your quick response! It does the job perfectly but, could we had the sample to the door/drawer section? It would be really simple like when in the "custom layout" we could replace all doors or drawer with any one we already have in inventory!
I spent a lot of time building up a directory of cabinets of all kind for faster results but it seem like the system has a few little tweaking still needed to be done on it!
Just another thing Vince, do ya have another trick in your sleeve for the part editor; when i want to carve or modify a part, we can only move this part in two ways, front view or back view, but what if i need to perform different task on the top or side of it? Like a hole for a tenon or what ever action required for the build? Is there a way to retarget the position in it?

Tks for your help, i'm use to work with my CAD for 3D parts but prefer by far the easy way with Ecab


Francis S

[Joe Dusel]

Adding the look of knotty pine to the Conestoga doors Texture Images for a given species is doable, but cumbersome.

This process requires you to change files in the Program Files/Thermwood/ecabinet systems directory. Select an image of the material you wish to use. For instance, you could pick any of the wood images from the materials/SR-Wood directory. Or you can download an image from the web if you like using something like Google Images. This image should be along the lines of 100 x 100 pixels and somewhere around 2K in size. It also needs to be a JPG file. Copy this image to the Doors/Conestoga/Finishes/(species) directory and also the materials/(species) for whatever species you wish. For example, put it into the “hard maple” directory in the “Doors/Conestoga/Finishes/hard maple” directory. Now, viewing the jpg files in the directory as thumbnails pick one of the finishes that you probably won’t use (like Heather Blue) and rename the files to add “old” to the name just in case you need it at some point. Rename your replacement finish color file to be the name of the file you are replacing, for instance “heatherblue 15sheen.jpg”. This needs to be done exactly. If you misspell it, it will not work. Now copy your new file to the “materials/hard maple” directory. When you go to create door using any of the Conestoga styles you can pick your new finish and get the look you want with a glass panel if you wish.

You can also take a photograph of a material that you want as a texture. This can be of almost anything, but for me it’s usually wood. The image will then need to be reduced in size to about 100 x 100 pixels. You can do this using your favorite photo editor, such as PhotoShop. Or you can just use Irfanview which comes with the eCabs software.

Joe

[Francis Samson]

Thousand thanks Joe!
You just made my day way much easier and my plans too! i thinks that you should do a sticky with it because i'm sure that a lot of people would like to know how!
I'll post some drawing later this week with some results of the difference

By the way Joe, is there anything to be done about the part editor that i was mentioning in my other reply?
It would help too, if i could work my way around in there also.

Tks again

[DanEpps]

I'll try to help out a little on the Part Editor Francis.

You can only edit the two faces (front & back) of a part because that is all that can be machined on a 3-axis CNC.

If you want to edit parts strickly for display purposes, however, you can "cheat" the Part Editor somewhat and make cuts on the sides.

To do this, create your tool in a horizontal orientation instead of the normal vertical orientation. Then you place a line (in Contour Mode of the Part Editor) on the side you wish to place the cut. Next, set the plunge depth to be where you want the cut located on the side (be sure to use a negative number).

Again, this is useful only for display purposes and cannot (to my knowledge) be machined on a CNC.

[Gene Davis]

For those of you interested in wood grain pics that can be used for texturing, http://www.certainlywood.com/index.asp is the gold mine for images.

[Francis Samson]

Joe, i did try your way to insert new material finish in the DIR but the soft doesn't recognize the new wood finish!
As per what you wrote, copy the new texture in: door/canestoga/finishes/hard maple -- then replace a finish like sheenblue with the pine finish that is 100x100 keeping the same name OK.
Then add to the door/canestoga/doormat with the new finishes OK with the same name OK
Still not working for me!

Why can't i just make a new file in the "finishes" that would be "pine" and add the jpg to the Doormat also and create a new wood finish!
That would make the job easier by adding new wood finish for doors and drawers.

Help again needed PLS

Thanks
Francis

[Joe Dusel]

Hi Francis,

I told you it was a bit cumbersome. Hey Thermwood guys, why do the Conestoga door/drawer front textures use the same image out of two different directories?

You got the process half right Francis. You need to copy the file into the /materials/hard maple directory. This is the same directory with all of the wall paper and other stuff.

If you only have the image changed in the Conestoga finishes area it will come up as a selection, but it won't actually apply the finish.

Joe

[Francis Samson]

Haaaaaaaaaaaaa, my hero!
Perfect score Joe, works A-1 but i'm still thinking that we should be able to add it in the general species for easier access.
Anyway , should ask the Ecab wiz to mod this part of the program!
Thank you for your time Joe, this made my work way much easier

Francis