This article describes the learning process in a sequential manner and should pay attention to the characteristics of the case, and illustrated with examples, if the designer himself has a general concept of vectorial drawing software, and has the foundation of graphics and drawing, through this article describes the concept of the product can be quickly transformed into a way to create something out of nothing to draw the performance of the ability of the map, even if it is a beginner, after a period of time, basic training, but also be able to portray a fairly sophisticated product tracing (see below). This is the first time that we have seen a product that has been designed to work in a different way, and it is the first time that we have seen a product that has been designed to work in a different way, and it is the first time that we have seen it work in a different way.
1. Introduction
The ability to represent design is an indispensable tool for developing an idea or a product, as well as providing us with a response to the idea and a visual reproduction for evaluation (Arends, 1988). Sketches are the most important communication medium for the presentation of a design, and are intended to convey a clear picture of the product's appearance.
Currently, the use of computers in drawing has become quite popular, and in view of its convenience and good simulation effect, in the industry and in practice, the works completed by computerized drawing are used as the final design proposal, and according to different types of products, they are presented in perspective, front view, or CAD dimensional drawings, and so on.
In design practice, plastic injection molding, assembly type products are more suitable for Coreldraw drawing, if it does not involve too much three-dimensional surface shaping, it is more than enough to draw. In addition to the other advantages of vector software files are small, can be output in various resolutions and sizes of the graphic files, drawn objects can be *** enjoy the characteristics of its support for a variety of image files, such as Adobe's Illustrator's. AI, .EPS format, Photoshop's. PSD, as well as Macromedia's Falsh. SWF and SVG file formats from Macromedia's Falsh, etc., which provide a lot of flexibility for other applications of subsequent drawings.
Currently, the teaching books for drawing products in Coreldraw are often too simple, or do not consider product design (Lee, 2002), which makes it difficult for interested learners to understand the key points of learning.
This paper therefore proposes a five-stage learning process, namely, 1. shape line drawing, 2. gradient coloring practice, 3. use of blending tools, 4. case tracing practice, and 5. product design from scratch, and explains the problems and know-how that may be encountered at each stage.
In the author's teaching experience, as long as you can learn some of the tricks of the trade, and the flexible use of a few Coreldraw commands, coupled with more observation of the general shape of the product and changes in light and shadow, anyone can quickly get started, and depict a realistic picture of the product. In the case of the third-year students I supervised, it took about half a semester to master the skills needed for the case drawing stage and to develop the basis for completing the design of the product from scratch.
In addition, the course itself integrates and extends the application of sketching and graphics, which is very helpful for the development of the concepts of light and shadow, three-dimensional drawings, and three-view conversion.
2. Line drawing
Line drawing principle, because the general appearance of the product are mainly geometric lines, so try to circle, polygon and other geometric drawing tools, with trimming (Trim), welding (Weld), cross (Intersect) three shaping tools to depict the correct shape, if there is a diagonal line or a curve must be drawn with the Bezier curve.
Designers should practice drawing the shape line with the least number of nodes, and pay attention to the changes in the shape at the turn of the line is sharp or arc (in the process of drawing the Bates curve with the mouse to press the left mouse button after dragging the node curvature control bar can be made), so that it can be in the beginning of the description, that is, the closest to the correct node attributes to draw, in order to avoid the subsequent too much modification. It is important that the shape lines be closed off at the end of the nodes so that they become a single piece that can be filled in with color or gradients.
Beginners usually can't draw a correct shape line at one time, at this time you can use the shape tool (shape tool) to select any node, adjust the curvature lever of the node, or press the right mouse button of the node editing tool, use the add, delete, to line, to curve, cusp, flatten (cusp), and so on. cusp), smooth (smooth), symmetrical (symmetrical) and other seven ways for fine-tuning (Figure 1, left), in order to make the Bezier tool (bezier tool) to draw lines can be neat, can be drawn by the screen ruler (ruler) part of the mouse drag to pull out the guide line (guideline) in order to align, or in the drawing of the line when the keyboard's Ctrl key to accurately draw vertical and horizontal lines.
This section requires intensive practice to master the subtleties of the lines, and it is important to be able to accurately depict the shape and avoid interference.
Figure 1: Interference at point B in the curve on the left above. When drawing with a Bézier curve, if the shape changes dramatically, the lines will overlap due to excessive curvature; at this point, you can change the attribute of point B with the node editing tool to "Sharp Corner", and then readjust the curvature lever to correct the result as shown in the lower-left part of the figure above. The right side of the image above is an example of an outline line drawing exercise, from geometric to curvilinear, simple to complex, where the drafter needs to practice judging which way to accurately construct the outline line.
The most important thing to do is to familiarize yourself with the shape of the line, what kind of node attributes and curvature control should be used to make it smooth, and to make the drawing process efficient, in order to reduce the time spent on editing, beginners can import some pictures or line drawings, and practice tracing the Bates curve to familiarize themselves with the control of the line (as shown in the right part of Figure 1).
3. Gradient coloring exercises
Gradient coloring control is to make the product produce a three-dimensional sense of an important factor, although Coreldraw only provides a straight line (Linear), round (Radial), conical (Conical), square (square) four kinds of coloring, but through the adjustment of the gradient center point of the "horizontal", "vertical" position and "rotation angle". However, by adjusting the "horizontal", "vertical", "rotation" and "angle" of the center of the gradient, and by combining it with the "dual-color" or "custom gradient" modes, a wide variety of light and shadow variations can still be created.
Taking Figure 2 as an example, from left to right, there are round, straight, linear, monochrome, and conical coloring effects. The difference between the upper and lower ones lies in the way the gradient is adjusted, which can present a different texture, while the square coloring is seldom used, so no example is given. If the designer has better sketching ability, he or she will soon be able to understand the meaning and show the appropriate three-dimensional sense. The trick here is to mix the gradient, you can name the "preset effects" in the dialog box, and press "+" to save the disk, so that you can subsequently need to enjoy or modify ****.
Figure 2: Different gradient coloring methods, this exercise is used to master the gradient coloring techniques.
4. Interactive Blend Tool
The use of the Interactive Blend Tool (Interactive Blend Tool) is the core of the key to creating a sophisticated and realistic product depiction, and its variations are also the most complex. It has three uses, one for the production of product drawings of the shape of the R corner, the second can be used to express the curvature of the surface changes, in addition, it can also be used for array duplication, in order to draw, such as heat dissipation holes or mesh and other complex small details.
Purpose one: the production of R corners, the use of interactive tools, so that Figure 3, the left side of the different colors of the two blocks between the shape and color of the blend, so that it produces such as dice like R corners. As in Figure 3, the reconciliation is set to 20 layers, and then the selection tool to select the process of reconciliation of the graphics, so that the outer frame is not filled with color (a faster way in the color ticket "S" (not filled with color) by pressing the right mouse button), you can get the right side of the edge of the dice similar to the R corner of the R like the change of light and shadow.
Additionally, it should be noted that the two graphics, the number of nodes and the relative position of the two graphics should be the same (so they are copied to the original image after scaling, adjusting the nodes and change the color of the way to carry out), otherwise it will not be smooth or produce disordered lines of the reconciliation.
Figure 3: Example of using the Harmony tool to create an R corner. The gradient that creates the R-corner effect is actually made up of twenty dark-to-light color blocks arranged back-and-forth, as shown above for most of the enlarged section.
Another example is the drawing of a metal cup (Figure 4), which combines gradient coloring and blending techniques. Figure 4 shows the finished drawing on the left, the disassembled parts of the drawing on the middle, and the color block wireframe on the right. It should be noted that basically all parts of the product must be R-angle blending, while the cup body of the upper and lower parts of the gradient color filling, and then this gradient color block and the bottom of the black block for blending. The combination of gradient and blending tools is the most important and commonly used technique in stereoscopic lighting, and you need to be familiar with it when drawing.
Figure 4: Example of combining Gradient Fill with the Reconcile tool
Use 2: To express the curvature of the surface, take the upper view of the swimming goggles as an example, to express the curvature of the surface (as in Figure 5), to produce a three-dimensional light effect is from the reconciliation of the different wireframes filled with the color, as mentioned earlier, the two graphics of the reconciliation, the number of nodes and their relative positions need to be the same, the designer in the implementation of the "Reconcile tool", if you find that the light and shadow are not the same as those desired, then you will see that the light and shadow is not the same as those desired. If the designer finds that the light and shadow do not match the desired feeling, he can use the "Shape Tool" to select any node in the upper and lower graphs for fine-tuning, in order to gradually adjust the desired shape to confirm whether the light and shadow are reasonable.
There is an important idea about the light and shadow of the frog mirror in Figure 5, if there are three objects A, B and C, A and B can be adjusted in order, and then B and C can be adjusted again. In this case, the eye mask and the front mirror are all adjusted by the three objects, which can produce a richer and more realistic change of light and shadow.
Figure 5: An example of the curvature of a surface, characterized by the fact that the eyecup and the front mirror are made up of three objects.
Use three: array copy (refer to the example in Figure 6), in the design of such as heat sinks or complex patterns, first of all, from the large circle to the small circle for the reconciliation, and then set the number of reconciliation process (in this case, the number of 5), and then select the process of reconciliation of the graphic, press the right button on the mouse to perform "break reconciliation group apart", and then select the implementation of the "dissolution of the group", to determine that all the round have their own independence, and then select have their own independent, and then select all the round "group" up, after this group and then copy, and then for the reconciliation can be shown in Figure 7x7 of the reconciliation matrix.
There is a principle to be noted, the two objects to be reconciled must be a single group and have the same properties (i.e., the number of nodes and their relative positions are similar), if the group already contains another group, it will not be able to execute the reconciliation, which is the reason why all the rounds after the reconciliation have been blown up and disbanded from the group in the previous process.
Figure 6: Example of using the Reconcile tool to draw a hole in a circle as an array
5. Exercise with case studies
In practice, if you already have the basic concepts mentioned above, you can further practice with 1:1 case studies. The Sanyo cell phone in Figure 7 is an example of a case study that can be completed by a beginner in less than two hours.
Figure 7 shows a scanned image of the original cell phone on the upper left, a fine tracing drawn in coreldraw on the upper right, a separation of the various parts of the process in the middle of the figure, and the original framing pattern before reconciliation on the bottom of the figure.
Before starting to draw in coreldraw, the first step is to analyze the light and shadow changes of the original drawing file (e.g., the largest area of the cell phone body is in fact filled with a circle, while the others are mostly filled with straight lines + angular changes), and draw a good plan for how many objects to be disassembled into, and how many of those objects can be copied by direct mirroring (mirrors), and then from large to small, from the body to the parts of the details in the order of drawing separately. Separate drawing, if you can efficiently and in accordance with the correct program, you can shorten the drawing time by more than half.
Figure 7: Tracing exercise - cell phone as an example
To draw 3D effects with 2D software, in fact, is the use of visual generalization of the phenomenon and the illusion to deceive (fake) the viewer's eyes, such as the split-mode line or the effect of the rotary axis line in this case, in fact, is a black line with a light gray line side by side and set the thickness of 0.2mm, when viewed at a normal scale or printed out, the effect is very similar to a black line, and the effect is very similar to the effect of the line. When viewed at normal scale or printed out, the effect is very similar to a mold line.
Using the display scale tool (zoom tool) can be enlarged to a very small part of the drawing, when the original scale is restored to view, the eye and can not distinguish the difference, so at first glance will be extremely realistic. In addition, the color part is also the focus of learning, because the product surface of the color variety, the drawer can use the eyedropper tool (Eyedropper tool) to absorb the original picture of the darkest and lightest color, remember the RGB value, in the gradient of the custom color filling in the input value, you can mix the very similar to the color change.
The way of enlarging the picture and pipetting the colors is something that traditional hand-drawing cannot do, so even if you are not good at hand-drawing, you can use this technique to make up for the lack of technical skills, and even a beginner can draw a good fine depiction of the picture (refer to the student work in Figures 8 to 10, with the scanned file on the left and the Coreldraw depiction results on the right).
To make the drawings indistinguishable from the original drawings, the drawers need to observe and consider every detail of the light and shadow or the shape of the drawings in order to determine the most efficient way to express themselves, and also to test the drawer's ability to learn from the mistakes of others and to create unlimited effects with limited instructions.
Figure 8: Student work: Ming Chi Institute of Technology, Design 3, Wang Ji
Figure 9: Student work: Ming Chi Institute of Technology, Design 3, Zhang Junqi
Figure 10: Student work: Ming Chi Institute of Technology, Design 3, Woo Tsung-fu
6. Creating something out of nothing
Before we go any further in designing a product, we'll first practise a simple case study, which is illustrated in Fig. 11 with a side view of four buttons. Side view section of a button, can you draw its top view in coreldraw in an imaginative way?
Figure 11: Side view of four buttons
If you are already familiar with gradient and blending techniques, and with a little bit of sketching and spatial ability, you can draw the result as in Figure 12, which is only for reference, and the way of drawing may vary depending on the individual assumption of where the light source is located, and you can also think about how to express the effect of the button being "pressed".
Figure 12: Coreldraw drawing of the button in Figure 11
The previous example illustrates the principle of creating something out of nothing, that is, when designing the appearance of a product, one must be able to determine what gradations and tones to use in a hypothetical light condition. The designers themselves need to have sufficient sketching ability and graphical foundation to create realistic light and shadow changes and correct three-dimensional views.
It is also necessary to add a rich imagination and judgment on the aesthetics of the shape, so as to be able to construct a sense of design of the product expression of the map, this part of the key ability to become a mature designer. The amount of time needed to learn varies from person to person, and designers still need to observe and practice more in order to be able to control what they want to do.
To create a product drawing from nothing in Coreldraw, we generally use orthographic projections, but perspective drawings are not recommended due to the complexity of lighting and shadows. There are two tips in this section, one is to draw a square with R corners. First, draw a square with the Geometry tool, then click the Shape tool (shape tool), select any one of the four corners of the square, and then drag and drop to find that the R corners are automatically generated, and depending on the distance of the drag and drop will produce different sizes of the radius, and if the original is a square, then drag and drop to the end of the rounded shape.
Then the object will be "converted to a curve" after rounding the corners, and then the node editing tools mentioned in the first stage can be used to modify the desired shape. Note that when drawing from nothing, the vertical, horizontal, curvature, and corner guides should be neatly aligned, and the parts that should be aligned should be neatly aligned (especially the parts that are symmetrical from left to right or from top to bottom).
Additionally, the way of coloring and color planning is very different from the previous case study. In the process of creating something from nothing, we need to use grayscale (i.e., 256 steps from black to white) to deal with the filling of color, gradient, and blending, and then when the overall shaping is complete, we will depict the outer frame of the part that needs to be colored, fill in the required color, move the color block layer to the top, and then use filters (lenses) to create the color. Filter (lens) tool, set the effect of the color block for the "Add color" (Add color) or "Transparency" (Transparency), so that you can deploy the required shape of the main product color, and can easily modify the color to color scheme.
Otherwise, if the color is already set at the beginning, you need to re-adjust the color one by one if you want to change the color of the product, which is something that the difference designers need to pay extra attention to.
The use of Coreldraw to create something out of nothing has been used for a long time in the industry. In general, there are many constraints on the design of the product's appearance in the design case, such as the need to match the existing parts, wrapping the existing core and the device, panels, or the shape of the model, etc., and at this time, it is quite appropriate to draw the product performance map in Coreldraw. The size of the drawings (A0~A4) can be set in the computer, and through the ruler to make the size accurate, and output 1:1 drawings.
While the dimensions can be marked in coreldraw, the 1:1 drawing already expresses the characteristics of CAD dimensional drawings, so it can be handed over to the organization's designers to set the drawing in the background, and then build a parametric solid model to carry out the later stages of mold development.
Once you are familiar with designing in Coreldraw, you will find that this way of designing becomes faster and more efficient. The author believes that for the majority of "box" products, in the development of the concept will be faster than the 3D shape, but also more able to express the real product characteristics and texture of the nuances, in addition, do not ignore the product is by the shape (form), color (color), texture (texture) composed of the three elements (Lin Chonghong, 1998), Chen Changrong, et al. (1997) has also converged on the product shape to distinguish between Vocabulary can be divided into four categories: shape, line, texture and color.
The author observes that if students start learning 3D shaping software such as Rhino and 3Dmax directly to draw product diagrams, because of the convenience of shaping, it is easy to ignore such things as proportion, texture, pattern mapping, and small concave and abrupt changes in the surface, as well as the impact of mold lines, mold pulling slope, logo mapping and texture, or ignore the interface layout of the buttons and so on, but these elements are often the key to product design excellence.
These are the key to the success of a product design.
This is like the case of a chassis design, which seems to be all square, but the key to differentiate the product is often the interface arrangement, texture, color, and other very delicate parts. These issues become simpler and more efficient when drawn in coreldraw.
Figures 13 to 15 show the design service center of Mingzhi Institute of Technology, assisting Hp to design and develop the design results of the small uninterruptible power system (UPS) chassis, as an example of these three figures, at first glance, they are all squares, so that the differentiation lies in the aforementioned details of the changes in the design of hand-drawn lines or 3D, it is very difficult to clearly show the characteristics of the shape of the conception of the very beginning.