I have been reading and admiring a lot of the excellent work and guides on this site. First time post . I am currently in the planning stage of a Tron themed case mod on a CM 690 II Adv case. I am planning on doing custom cuts into both side panels. One side will be getting a window along with cut outs of the tron logo and tron circuit lines. The back side will be a more artistic design i was thinking a light cycles zooming towards a recognizer as well as circuitry lines all about. With custom fan grills on both panels one a Tron disc and the other possibly "bit" or another tron disc , still deciding, drawing, etc. Also want to paint both front and top grills and some internals. Along with lighting i'm hoping everyone will enjoy. This will be my 4th pc build but non have had near this extensive of work. I do have a few questions. I am in need of some advice. 1# I am currently trying to get a clean light cycle silhouette, i've taken the best profile i can get (in photoshop) cs2,used find edges, and am trying to isolate it in quick mask. Is there possibly a better way and are there any tips or tricks to getting a smooth cut when i put this thru a cnc machine. Also is there a way to transfer images into auto cad for the purpose of creating the outline needed for the cuts. I am not good enough to draw this all from scratch. 2# Fan Wiring I am looking at a couple of options regarding fan lighting. I was hoping for dual color LEDs' blue/orange but this may or may not happen. I want to isolate the lights from the fans power run separate switches so i can run the fans off a controller and have the lights wired into 1 or 2 switches. I haven't seen any fans that have the ability to switch between colors i.e. solid blue and then switchable to solid orange. Though what is more important than having the dual color is having the isolated lights. So my two options is finding a good fan that is not too expensive that i can rewire and chain or lead the lights to a single power unit. My second option is getting the fans and installing the LED's and stringing them back to a led power station if i did this then i could use dual color LED's which would be harder/more expensive/ more likely to succeed. The reasoning behind the dual color is only to give the good/evil color effect, if you have seen tron you probably understand what i mean. If wiring a switch for on/off and 2 colors is too much i am willing to stick with pure blue. Currently planning on : 3x140mm's (plus the existing blue 140 in front, it has seperate wiring already for a case switch) 3x 120mm's, and 2 x 80mm x 15mm's.. Thats already 32 LED's at 4 a piece. Plus LED's to light up the window acrylic. Not sure if one LED power station can handle that load as it only is set up for 20 led's 3# Balancing lighting. I am planning to re sleeve all my cables to a uv blue with many of the connectors replaced with the uv blue. also i am looking into the uv gel pen mod. Not sure if anyone has seen this in a case and can tell me if it worked well and or if there are any long term effects that could damage my mobo. I figured what better mod to have uv circuits and structures. Anyways so the question is about balancing the blue cold cathodes with the uv lighting. I don't want a overpowered uv purple in the case but i dont know how well the uv will work if i drown the case with the blue. Any tips, or thought, guides? Currently planned setup Case:CM 690 II adv CPU: i7 930 Mobo: Probably a Asus P6x58d-e still undecided Ram: 6gb ddr3 1333 or 1600 3x2gb GPU: 2x Nvidia 460's 1gb versions Sound: Undecided would like to stay at $100 x-fi titanium or other? OS already have a new copy of win 7 Power: XFX black edition 750w Cooling:Air unless i can get a sponsor already costing more than i can afford. I will post images for suggestions and the like as progress happens.
You're going to need to vector the image (i.e. turn it from a grid of pixels into a set of lines that describe the shape). Tracing it by hand, though arduous, will always produce a far better result than any combination of filtering and auto-tracing. You already have Photoshop, so there's a chance you already have Illustrator. If not, then Inkscape is a free alternative. There are plenty of tutorials if you google "vector trace".
I use Vectric's VCarvePro software to convert images to .dxf files suitable for machining. For example, I was the one that converted the wolf and text to .dxf for soultrain's White Wolf TJ07 project... If you post up the images you plan on using, and their approximate finished size, I'd be happy to convert and send you the .dxf files.
Awesome Already tracing. I'll post the bike once I'm done to see if everyone thinks I'm heading in a good direction. Thanks for the help guys. I'll definitely take you up on the file conversion craigbru
Cool. If you have the raw image, I might not even need the tracing. As long as there is a somewhat defined outer edge, I'm golden.
I am working from this image Image gets fuzzy down at the ground around the tires. I was looking at doing a full cut out inside the tire, the blue rings using the limbs as supports, behind the leg, and the engine compartment, a simplified version of the blue line up the thigh at the gap going up the back down the shoulder ending mid upper shoulder, a out line of the bike ( up to that point i had till my pc randomly reset and i realized i hadn't saved . Besides that i was gonna do a smoother outline around the bike using where the tires meant the road for supports. Then add in the back beam as a simple outline of the bright bar at its top. It's pretty complicated i'm hoping the cnc machine will be able to handle that small of cuts. I used to work at a local community college in the tech building. The head of the cnc progarm said he'd cut these and the fan grills if i brought what i needed and the designs. Got to go buy the aluminum plates for the fan grills some time soon.
decisions I'm thinking this might be a easier image to work from. Which do you think would have a better impact ? I think i'll work on the recognizer till i decide Imagine the bike zooming towards the recognizer. With a el panel behind them with a blue filter for the bike and a orange for the other.
Here's what i have so far Am i going in the right direction? I had to do alot of guess work on the top. WIP I still have a layered version of this to edit. Oh and i'm having issues with borders. I unfortunately don't have illustrator. I was gonna use inkscape then i saw a tutorial for the pen tracing. I didn't realize that i couldn't get non feathered borders. sucks i have installed inkscape , is there a way to do a complex border from this image in inkscape ? I figured a automated border would look 100 percent better over a second trace around it. But i'll do what i need. Any suggestions ? I'll do some work on the bikes. I doing a color sample selection then using modify borders then using abrush or paint bucket but it feathers. No hard edge
Update Decided i need to scrap that recognizer and start with a different design in mind. In the mean time did a rough first draft of the window side panel. Let me know what you think. ideas, suggestions welcome Think i will reverse the direction from left to right on the circuit middle right. Gonna make a fan grill like the new legacy style throwing disc for that 140mm. Oh and the white is all cut out and the black is a re apply of inner cuts to the plexi.
