The design of the standby instrument panel is nicely shaping up. These are 3D rendered images. I produce these from a number of different programs. I start off with Qcad Pro, using the standard DXF format. I am using this to design the simulator panels. It's a great program that only cost about £20, nothing like the £1000's of pounds of professional CAD programs but it works great for the type of work i am doing. This then gets sent to Google SketchUp, a free program that allows you to design..well... just about anything. Once complete it gets sent to a rendering system. I use Kerkythea. It's free and open source, which is astounding giving how powerful the program is. Once it's rendered it then gets sent to Gimp 2.6 (odd name!) This is yet another free program that is trying to replicate Adobe Photoshop. It's nowhere near as powerful but it's great for tinkering with the light and contrast of the images, manipulating photos and digital painting.
I had a bit of a struggle with the lettering. I have never seen the inside of a C172 (let alone a brand new SP model) so I have no reference photos other than what is offered on the internet. I struggled to find good close up photos of the warning symbol on the panel. However, after much debating as to what it read I managed to find a clear view of it... hurrah!
Fantastic looking renders! I might have to look into those other programs you're using to achieve such results.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of your blog is great too. Very interesting.