cast iron lacework

[Wokka]

Just a quick question.

Does anyone know where I can get either high quality images or better yet illustrator files of victorian style cast iron lacework?? Mostly for fencing/balustrading and decorative friezes.

Cheers

[Ernest Burden III]

Try searching a site like this http://cben.net/ that has CAD blocks. Those would be vector, so could be converted to .ai

 

OR, if you have a photo that is corrected to ortho you can trace it for centers of the patterns, which likely repreat.

 

Any images to post of what you are looking for?

[Wokka]

Ernest,

Thanks for the link. Can't find exackly what I need but it's still a great link for other info! See image for the detail I'm after. My version is way to low-res and the paths I get from PS are pretty unimpressive. As this job is due yesterday I had to resort to my pitifull attempt to trace splines. Hopefully the rest of the image will so impress the client that he won't pick up the subtle poor lacework. I would still like to find some more good references for this type of info as (hopefully) the work is ongoing.

Thanks again.

[Ernest Burden III]

Also at issue is how 'close' you will be to the lacework. If its far-off, you can do a single polygon with a bump map and alpha.

 

You could use the image you posted as the alpha and do some filtering in Photoshop to 'raise' the middles of the tracery for the bump.

 

Otherwise you need a few splines to create the patterns, but there are only two in the example.

 

And the bump map could be used as a sub-poly displacement map to actually create geometry for a closer shot.