what do you use for final presentations?

[salf]

When you have to print out, a final presentation, lets say a final project if youre an architctural student, or like in my case, for an architectural competition, what do you use to composite (right word?) and to print the presentation?

 

Lets say one of those typical presentations, with some background image, some renders, some floor plans and section, and some text.

 

In the past, when i was studying i used Autocad, it was easier for me, to scale the plans and sections, and for the quaility of the drawing (floor plans and sections), but of course autocad wouldnt give the graphical results that photoshop would, for the "artisitic" part.

 

I never used photoshop for this, because i was concerned for the quality of the imported acad drawings.

 

Have you used entirely photoshop for theis kinda work?

[salf]

Well, just in case you dont understand me, im gonna link 2 images to help explain myself, they're images from the results of an achitectural competition help on Machu Picchu, Peru, some months ago:

 

First one: http://www.arquitectum.com/cinternacional/ganadores/tercerpremio.htm

 

Now that one, is pretty straight forward, looks Autocad, only color hatches and imported images, that is the kinda presentations im familiar with.

 

Second one:

http://www.arquitectum.com/muestravirtual/413.htm

 

Now, this type of things most be done in other software, lets say photshop, it looks to artistical for Autocad, although, again, the whole background image, could have been made in photoshop, then imported to autocad, put as background, and the 4 drawings on top.

 

What are your experiences?

[ninghai]

i think the best tool for assembling a presentation is Illustrator (single page) or InDesign (multi-page).

[IC]

Hi Salf

This is something I've only started experimenting with but yeah Illustrator and Photoshop are made for this kind of work.

[STRAT]

photoshop for me

[Sketchrender]

we use microstation as it can bring in references, ie back ground site aeial images and drawings on top, through it's raster manager.

Saying that i prefer illustrator, as it can import and export dwg's and dxf's, it also now has basic 3d drawings. the vector line quality is fantasic I love it.

 

I would recomend a look seriously, I think you can download a demo for 30 days.

 

phil

[Jure]

Illustrator and photoshop used here. But I also used Corel Draw in the past but didn't like it as much. I import drawings to photoshop from AutoCad via EPS plot.

[mbr]

I"ve always used Illustrator. Here's a link to a competition I did last year. I take the plans and touch them up, adding color or thickness, and add any other details.

It's a great site for this type of thing, too.

 

http://www.pushpullbar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=994

 

 

What competition are you doing?

[Hector]

I Do the following:

 

For drawings, I export a bitmap from Vector Works. This image will be at a high resolution. Vectorworks does this very, very well. Generally I get a TIFF file. It just print beautifully.

 

The drawing may be just black lines over a white background. I import that into photoshop an place it in the topmost layer, change the opacity mode to multiply. In that way white becomes transparent, so I get only the black lines so It is possible to anything in the layers below like textures, fake shadows etc. This aproach is very flexible. You can also blend the line drawing with anythin in the background (photographs, etc) to create different effects.

 

Another option is to use other vectorworks features as color fills, gradients and images to provide color and textures and then export the file as a bitmap, as I mentioned above. Then I import that image and use it as a

background so I can add more stuff above, like trees, cars, people.

 

I don't know if you can easily get a bitmap from Autocad or other programs with the required quality.

 

I edit renderings, photographs, digitalized sketches etc in photoshop, usually trying to work at 300 dpi.

 

I like then to assemble the final sheet in Illustrator or Freehand. I prefer to add all the text there rather than doing it in phtoshop. It is just easier and faster to edit and much more flexible.

 

Other advantages are that if you work in Illustrator or Freehand, imported bitmaps can be re-edited in photoshop and be updated atomatically.

You can also create templates to include things like titleblocks, logos, backgrounds so when you add a new page to the presentation all that stuff is there. (Freehand does this).

 

I try not to use photoshop for the final sheets as I end up with too many layers which make thins more complicate. (Each text block is placed in a different layer).

 

I try not to import dxf files into Illustrator or Freehand so I do all the "line" work in vectorworks which is faster an acurate. I am not sure if illustrator supports simbols (blocks), groups, or pieces that may be in 3d, line thicknesses, dash lines, etc so I try to avoid dealing with those problems.

 

After presentation is ready you can save all as a pdf (in freehand you can save your multipage document into a single pdf file). So you can print anywhere, anytime. You could also export the whole sheet as a single bitmap file and import it into powerpoint.

 

Hector.

[salf]

THanks all.

 

So overall, Illustrator is better, the thing is that im in a rush, and already own Photoshop, and i get more handy with it, I know Illustrator is basically the same interface (both Adobe), both the times i tried it, i was really lost, so i dont have the time to learn it while working on the presentation, so for now Ill use Photoshop.

 

Now, I learned the EPS export option in this forum some time ago, theres a thread about it, but, im wondering how to set the scale of the drawings, so when I open them on Phostoshop, theyre on scale.

 

Or is it just the same way, as to print straight from Autocad?, i just set the scale ( i allways use 1000 : X) where X could be 100, 200, 500 etc), if i do it this way, the drawing that i open on Photoshop will print out in the correct scale? (as long as i dont scale it after, of course)

 

And finally, do i have to set a special line width? I remember some time ago, that someoen told that in order to import to illustrator, the advice was to change the width of the drawing on autocad, so you could see it on screen. (you know, with PEDIT / WIDTH) do i have to do this?

[salf]

MBR:

 

I saw that presentation of yours like 3 days ago, pretty nice, i recently joined the pushpullbar forums, i dont use Sketchup but i really like the architectural discussions in there.

 

The competition im working on is here in Venezuela, its international though:

http://www.zonarentalucv.com/

[Frosty]

I think it would depend on wher eit was being printed, but the best tools for the job include PhotoShop in conjunction with Illustrator and/or Freehand with InDesign or Quark. My personal flow is all Adobe >> PDF. Almost all print houses can handle PDF.

[hockley91]

I just did a presentation for a church. I always use Photoshop. I haven't worked with Illustrator yet, but I might try it!

 

What I do is export my autocad drawing as a high dpi .eps file. I export by individual layer depending on what I want to work with (trees, buildings, grass, etc.)

 

I then import the .eps layer files into photoshop (I can also adjust the dpi during import). After that I just go to town with the different colors, effects, gradients, and filters.

 

It works for me pretty well.

[Hector]

About the scale:

 

I'am not sure about the implications of turning a vectorial drawing (cad) to a bitmap file (tiff, etc) in terms of accuracy. If you are printing from photoshop I assume that accuracy is not an issue, otherwise you would be printing from autocad. What I do in such a case is to include a graphical scale within the drawing and then scale de drawing manualy in photoshop until it matches the rulers. If you drawing is at scale 1:50, one meter in your graphical scale should match 2cm in photoshop rulers. you can then erase the graphical scale if you don't want to have it in the final printout.

 

It is not 100% accurate, but you are not going to build anithing with it, are you?. It is just a presentation.

 

Be sure to print without scaling or the "scale to fit" feature.

[salf]

It is not 100% accurate, but you are not going to build anithing with it, are you?. It is just a presentation.

 

 

LOL...yeah...exactly, thanks fo rthe graphical scale tip.

 

But, i guess that if i export the EPS file with the desired scale, lets say 1:50 as your example, then when i open the file in photoshop, 1 meters should be equal to 2 cm, right?...as long as i dont resize the file.