Author Topic: Perspective 3D Box/Book Cover in Visio? (Read 10117 times)

zztop · « **on:** March 18, 2015, 04:23:40 PM »

Hello Experts

i am quite new to this forum so please give me achance. i have a problem, for you is a small one but for me is a big one: i need to obtain something like in the attachment and i can't do it using my Visio 2010. Can anyone to tell mehow to do it?

Thank you in advance.

Yacine · « **Reply #1 on:** March 18, 2015, 04:56:18 PM »

Hi zztop,
despite I do almost everything with Visio, I would not do this task with it.

Have a look at Inkscape (google it).

zztop · « **Reply #2 on:** March 19, 2015, 12:21:48 AM »

Thank you for your fast reply. As far as i know using Visio 2013 can be obtain this kind of shapes including the image in them.....the problem is that i don't know how to set the shadows as in this attachment ....

JuneTheSecond · « **Reply #3 on:** March 19, 2015, 03:29:50 AM »

I think you can referring pictures below.

Visio Guy · « **Reply #4 on:** March 19, 2015, 04:21:47 AM »

I think that with Visio 2013's perspective effects, you could do a decent job. However, getting the rotations just right is tricky. You could probably copy June's values.

There must be online services that do this. Many, many websites show their digital products with a box and even CDs, even though you just download and install whatever it is they are selling. If I had time and was trying to learn web technologies, it would be a great exercise to create something that did this...

I found these by searching for "online 3d product box builder". No idea if they are any good:

http://www.3d-pack.com/
http://www.mobilefish.com/services/3dbox/3dbox.php
http://www.indigitalcover.com/

I used 3d-pack to make this image of my book. There was never a hard-cover edition of Using Microsoft Visio 2010, but this looks pretty good!

I found 3d-pack super-simple to use. You upload 3 images (hopefully we can trust them...), then you can freely rotate the generated "box" to any angle you want. It is pretty slick.

JohnGoldsmith · « **Reply #5 on:** March 19, 2015, 04:46:49 AM »

I didn't know that images get tranformed as well so I thought I'd have a go too. So, in addition to the answers below, attached is a very quick (isometric) example using Visio's 3D tools. The tools include perspective so you could play with that too. For the reflection, I found I had to apply that to the individual faces, rather than once it was grouped.

The basic walkthrough for the attached is:

insert and image (that is a front view)
use the crop tool to get rid of unwanted parts
set height and width
apply 3D
draw a new rectangle for the left side and use similar points as above
draw a new rectangle for the top side and use similar points as above

Hope that helps.

Best regards

John

Visio Guy · « **Reply #6 on:** March 19, 2015, 04:51:15 AM »

Nice job, John!

I've wanted to create a box maker for years. Before Visio 2013, I figured I could use .NET to export and transform flat, straight-on images inside of Visio.

With the new 3D stuff, we should be able to build an interactive one, once the images have been worked into "smart faces". I think June has already done the work for dynamically changing perspective in some of his other posts (didn't he make a spinning airplane or something?)

zztop · « **Reply #7 on:** March 19, 2015, 04:54:09 AM »

I said with no doubt that you are experts. This examples are excellent. Thank you Sirs for your help is perfect for my needs. Great, you helped me allot.

zztop · « **Reply #8 on:** March 19, 2015, 05:07:33 AM »

Now, i have a question: in Visio i use "Drawing Explorer" in order to set a picture for a specific shape. The problem is that i don't know how to center or move righ-left, or up-down the picture in order to be fitted as i want on that shape....i can ony set the picture and if i move the picture or shrink-strech the picture, the position in the final shape remain the same.....how can i fix that?

see the attachment please

Nikolay · « **Reply #9 on:** March 19, 2015, 05:48:44 AM »

You need Visio 2013 for "3-D Effects". They do not exist in 2010.
Means, you won't be able to do this sort of things with drawing explorer (it's not drawing explorer you see on screenshots above, it's "effects" panel)

zztop · « **Reply #10 on:** March 19, 2015, 05:55:50 AM »

I use two laptops with two versions of Visio....one is Visio 2010, one is Visio 2013....so please tell me how to do it in 2013 if you can help me. Thank you in advance.

JohnGoldsmith · « **Reply #11 on:** March 19, 2015, 06:06:47 AM »

Grab a shape, right click and select 'Format Shape' to show the panel. Under the title ('Format Shape') you should see two icons: as paint bucket and a pentagon. Click the pentagon icon and expand the '3-D Rotation' section.

There as presets (a button) that will get started and then you can also use various axis rotation components as well.

'Reflection' is in the same list.

zztop · « **Reply #12 on:** March 19, 2015, 06:20:57 AM »

here is what i mean....

zztop · « **Reply #13 on:** March 19, 2015, 06:21:38 AM »

and the last one...

JohnGoldsmith · « **Reply #14 on:** March 19, 2015, 06:35:09 AM »

Hi,

I'm a bit confused.

If your question is how to do this in Visio 2013, then use my recent reply ('Grab a shape...'). You do not need to use the Drawing Explorer, other than perhaps to select the shapes you're interested in.

If you meant how can I do this in Visio 2010, then you're right that you can use an image in fill pattern and use it to fill a transformed shape, but the image itself will not be transformed (only effectively cropped to that path).

Does that help?

Visio Guy