Quetzalcoatl snake-guitar

I was born in the year of the Snake in the Water lunar cycle according to the Chinese zodiac. Because of this at some point I wanted to create a guitar that had the shape of a snake. It probably was of some sort of surrogate compensation of me being unable to get some decent sounds out of such an instrument, in spite of many attempts. I never got beyond the plucking of The House of the Rising Sun accords and even then the neighbours called the police to have me arrested. As hardware and software progressed, I used various 3D programs, none of which allowed me to produce the image I had in my head, until Rhinoceros R5 and T-Splines made it possible to approximate my vision.

3D organic shapes

3D programs have evolved over the years at a tremendous pace. Today it is possible in many of them to create realistic organic shapes, somewhat similar to molding clay, which - as opposed to stone carving - allows to remove as well as add material to objects that are being built. In addition to the real life molding process, the software takes care of calculating smooth transitions between adjacent areas while automatically creating a symmetrical half of the object if so desired by the artist. Creating symmetrical shapes is therefore no longer a tedious task that consumes shiploads of the artist's time.

3D design created in Rhinoceros R5 + I-Splines

I conjure texts too! - A poem.

So far I did not feature examples of text creation in this blog. It is time for this to change. Below you see a poem (or at least an attempt to poetry) I wrote, when thinking of science 'discovery' that 97% of human DNA has no function they were able to detect, because it doesn't produce proteins which is why that incited to tempt scientists to call that 97% 'junk DNA'.

Some - mainly spiritually inclined people - suggest that humankind originally had 12 strand DNA instead of the 2 strand of which our bodily tissue consists of now. Supposing such a claim is true, it would mean that we use only 3% of 1/6th of our true potential..., which equals 0.005th of the original DNA structure, assuming extra strands do not just increase perception and skills exponentially.....

Com-Art airbrush paint

After all digital tinkering with DTP and 2D & 3D apps, it's time to pick up the airbrush once more. My mate Geerco van Strien polished the needle of the Iwata Micron and we bought a Com-Art portrait set of paints at Airbrush Services Almere. Initially I tried diluting them with water, but it appeared almost unnecessary. A test of this paint that was new to me you see below.

Com-Art test next to a 20 Euro cent coin

3D printing

3D printing has a great future. The devices are still unaffordable for the average consumer, but as the technique develops it will become within reach of the private people. Larger, complex objects will be printed by specialized companies, but simple constructions will one time soon be printed at home not too far away in the future. As is the case with all consumer goods, the possibility to produce complex objects with 3D printing devices will be increasing rapidly. This will include plastic parts, composite materials, metals (including non-ferro objects). Basically any material needed to produce useful things.

Simple 3D printed ring

Suffer from soccer

This is the Ajax logo - the new one - created in Rhino 3D version 5, mainly using the pipe command. Ajax has started the 2013 - 2014 in a horrendous way. The transfers of Christian Eriksen and Toby Alderwereld were in no way compensated. The technical management failed to anticipate their departure that has been a foreseeable event the entire preceding year. 

Working under pressure

Working under pressure. Negative pressure as you might notice. It requires more than one 3D applications between which objects can be traded using either .dxf or .3ds files. It makes working for the user easier but the computer has to work harder several 3D apps open.

Pressure gauge

High end 3D app filleting

Low end and mid range 3D application commonly struggle with producing proper filleting of curves. Some even mess up in performing such tasks. Even more so when fillets of different radii meet and / or surfaces join at angles other than perpendicular. High end 3D programs however have no trouble handling such matters. See image below where detail is in red circles.

3D fillets

3D applications have different approaches to processing matters; the way in which their functions handle things are distinguished. The algorithms in which they calculate certain processes are different formulas. In this respect they resemble people all of whom have different talents and different things at which they suck (pardon my French). The image below is an example of the different way of handling of matters.

The fillet of the object at the top is irregular while the bottom one is smooth. It is an angled joint of two pipes of a different diameter - one of the constructions that a number of 3D programs do not handle well. The fillet actually looks like a real life weld of welder who was not too skilled. Also the fillet command disrupted the surface of the slanted pipe. The application producing the poor filleting does an excellent job at other types of modeling, rendering and creating animations, but this particular function gives bad results. It is probably why many 3D artists use various applications to achieve whatever they want to achieve.

High end applications

I have been watching a number of tutorials on Youtube on a high end 3D program - Solid Edge - and became stunned by its complexity that was paired with a user friendliness that I was unaware of. This seems to be a contradiction, but in fact it just requires the user to adapt a different frame of mind when modeling parts. What this means, is that many relations between (sub) parts exists - similar to what we encounter in every day life - that we take for grated without actually being aware of it. The complex functionality was made to serve user comfort and increase construction options dramatically, which are features never seen in the over the counter commercial apps most people have installed on their computer.

Browsers and Flash

Flash can only be seen in browsers when the plugin is installed. It is often not behaving like is described in the specs of either of the components. Corporations would have you believe that they are working towards plugin-free browsers in developing HTML5. This of course is quite ludicrous. Many programs have the functionality that allows the installation of plugins that enrich the programs' functionality that in some cases raise their level of usability to heights that manufacturers and / or users had never dreamed of. Sadly many creators of plugins put malware in the code, which has become more of a standard than not in these times in which programmers aren't bothered by becoming a nuisance to the unassuming.

UI's becoming darker

After years of being bombarded by particles emitted by bulky CRT's and LCD 'dirty waves', the industry has finally started to make applications' User Interfaces darker. Adobe as one of the leading software developing companies has given some of its products (strangely enough not all of them) a dark interface.

Adobe Illustrator CS6 dark UI

Have a useful day

At times I become overwhelmed by an infinite type of sadness. Especially when realizing that mankind has separated from its true essence that is unknown to a disturbing number of people who aren't even looking for an excuse why they're cluttering up this planet. I had such a moment recently when I was sent this video clip by a friend on Facebook:

Communication

Professor Frank Tipler in his epic work 'The physics of Immortality', claimed that life is the exchange of information. Whether two boxers beat the crap out of each other in a match, a parent tries to explain something to his or her child or when people make love, they all exchange information. The way in which communication is conducted may differ, but it is what all of us do all the time anywhere.

Business communication

Dynamic Blogger theme modifications

If you want to modify your (Blogger) blog and use a dynamic theme, please consider visiting Southern Speakers. Their css code suggestions ALL work and enable bloggers to change their blog pages' appearance in a subtle or radical way. I've explored the web for a long time in search of adequate tips on this matter, but never came across a better source.

Southern Speakers header image

The CommuniCats blog uses their css code to center the Header and Tab Bar, Make the Tab Bar sticky and to continuously show the gadgets to the right. As you can see, all of the code simply works. Just cut and paste into the Template - Customize - Advanced - CSS and you're done.

Digital / analog

Lately, out of necessity, I have been doing a lot of digital work. Fun as it may be to do, at some point digital creation feels as if something is lacking. Perhaps it is because humans are analog beings. So, to get my mind off the rigid canvas of digital tools, I may revert to the only real type of canvas from time to time to appease more natural aspects of life. I have a magnificent photograph for reference that I edited digitally (...) to spray with an airbrush. Many tests will be involved; I have to try new things always to prevent from becoming bored.

Lightbox suddenly disappeared from Blogger

Without any warning or offering any solution Google removed Lightbox from the blogs. Lightbox allowed to click on one photo in a post or page which enabled visitors to scroll through all photos present in that page or post. It shows Google's boundless arrogance and disrespect for their users that are only interesting to them as cash cows that bring in advertisement revenues.

Lightbox - image display

CorelDRAW vs AutoCAD

One thing I never quite understood, is that CorelDRAW is not used more often for creating technical drawings. In The Netherlands companies seem to have an unwavering preference for AutoCAD, which is at least 10 times more expensive than CorelDRAW. Most drawings do not require the complex features of AutoCAD; the drawings' simplicity can be constructed with CorelDRAW considerably faster, allowing to apply more visual options, such as line thickness, style and colour, gradient colouring of planes etc. at much lower cost. And in the end, production workers need drawings to make the parts their company needs, particularly 2D drawings, since 3D renderings often are unfit to instruct the employees to craft what they are expected to create.

In 1995 I decided to put things to the test while working for a well known Dutch air carrier company KLM by creating an educational drawing to be used for presentations in the classroom for licence training of technicians. It took me 10 hours to draw that image in CorelDRAW and when I attempted to do the same in AutoCAD, I did not even complete one third of the drawing at the 10 hour mark.

Instruction drawing created in CorelDRAW for
 the Technical Training Department of KLM airlines

Besides the slower performance AutoCAD's output was quite less visually appealing than CorelDRAW's. I am well aware of the fact that hard core drafts persons (I worked among them) consider CorelDRAW an inferior product compared to their cherished tool of choice. But still, in this type of work CorelDRAW far outperformed AutoCAD, both in speed as in visual appearance. Then my co-workers said CorelDRAW wasn't able to draw exact measurements, which is an other biased opinion, since it actually is capable of doing that (with the transform tool).

After that argument was debunked they bragged that AutoCAD allowed to work as accurate as four digits behind the decimal mark. That is of course true, and CorelDRAW is unable to match such accuracy. But then, which production employee is capable of seeing the difference between a 0.001 and a 0.0001 millimeters measure with his bear eyes? Not many I guess. For drawing purposes the drafts person only needs to indicate the actual measurement in the measure indication - the difference is invisible in the drawings made by either of the applications.

CorelDRAW has the same layer-capabilities as AutoCAD, more colouring options and more search and replace options than AutoCAD. Engineers can even replace colours throughout a project, line thicknesses or even basic shapes. It can also read, import and export DXF-format images and a lengthy list of other formats (including PDF). CorelDRAW also has a trace function with which bitmap images can be converted into vectors (not overly accurate, but it works). In addition hardware requirements can be more modest when running CorelDRAW, which is an other cost-saving advantage. Besides Corel matching or exceeding many of AutoCAD's drawing features (and trailing in just a few of those) the price of the application is much more attractive than that of AutoDesk's expensive product.

Another thing at which CorelDRAW is quite good is to draw tables that are editable as if working in Excel (visually that is). Some complex technical drawings would benefit greatly from this feature. Also generating and reading barcodes and QR codes could be useful for the production department; CorelDRAW has these features built-in.

Furthermore importing Excel sheets can be used to instantly create a Bill of Materials (BOM) and CorelDRAW is well capable of creating templates for the various drawing sizes to ensure consistency. 

Note:

When working with Windows 10 CorelDRAW version X6 is disqualified as an alternative for AutoCAD. It is horrifically slow and not fit anymore for production of technical drawings.

An other Note:
With CorelDRAW X8 Corel rehabilitated itself. It's fast again and the renewed measurement indication method works quite well. They should perhaps drop the annual issuing of a new version, some of which just aren't ready yet (= teeming with bugs). System admins would hugely appreciate a reduced issuance rate of properly working versions as well (particularly since .cdr-files of a newer version cannot be opened by older ones. AutoDesk has a similar update rate and that invariably gives admins a thorough headache too.

Update Nov 26 2017
With its 2017 version CorelDRAW is back in the game again. Many on-the-fly functions that significantly speed up production, an excellent table creation and editing functions and a built-in bar-code generator, all of which Adobe Illustrator and AutoCAD lack. It also converts vector objects into bitmaps easily and fast after which many bitmap editing functions are available inside CorelDRAW, which doesn't require users to leave the program to edit bitmaps in Corel PhotoPaint or Photoshop. Great functionality that other programs simply do not have. On the other hand AutoCAD has incorporated 3D functionality which would be a great plus if it had not been for its insane price strategy.

Given the amount of views of this blog entry, I think I can safely conclude that I'm not the only one considering the possibility to use CorelDRAW (for certain tasks) for technical drawings. For companies that are not into the production of complex high tech products CorelDRAW may be an interesting and much cheaper alternative to AutoCAD. Should the nature of such companies' products over time change towards an increased complexity, CorelDRAW is capable of exporting the DXF-file format which can be opened in AutoCAD. In some cases it may be useful to make use of CorelDRAW's function to generate and read QR- and barcodes, that the program offers. The Adobe suit does not have such a function.

Conclusion

An alternative for CorelDRAW would be FreeCAD, but that program is much more difficult for the designers of a company to learn than CorelDRAW, even if it has the advantage of rendering 3D views of a product to check if there are design flaws, like unwanted intersections and flawed complex routing of intricate parts.

However, FreeCAD's main feature is to also enable designers to make excellent 2D drawings, but as I wrote, FreeCAD has a steep learning curve, to which not all designers can adapt without great time and effort, while CorelDRAW is far less difficult to learn and is capable of enabling a much quicker (and colourful) design process. So theoretically, CorelDRAW could also be used as an additional program to complex and expensive AutoCAD to draw the less complicated parts of a machine or system. CorelDRAW can export and import the .dwg format, making it compatible with AutoCAD to a large extend.

Postscript
In the past years CorelDRAW has lost its previously solid position in the graphic and design markets. The program is still used relatively in the specific production-heavy industries like sign-making, vinyl cutting, laser engraving, vehicle wraps, and commercial printing workflows, in Europe, the US and in India, South-Asia, Latin America and some parts of Africa as well, but it seems to be experiencing some sort of near death process in the past years. Which is a pity; I used to create and edit in CorelDraw and PhotoPaint quite a lot before the turn of the century, but other programs like Affinity, that later was acquired by Canva, added a lot more functions, that made work easier. Affinity was cheap and Canva is free (for the time being anyway), but they do not have the measurement indication options that CorelDRAW offers, which is crucial for industrial production use.

In my spare time I continued to use CorelDRAW, even when I was forced to use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop for my job for about a decade, because it has several really useful shortcuts, that could be used on the fly, that the ridiculously expensive Adobe products did not have in those days. I must say that I regretted to have to abandon the Corel products, because they served me well in those days, but when development slows down, it is imperative to look for options in programs that keep advancing in order to create more complex graphics, such as technical drawings, realistic vector portraits, logos and cartoons.

3D practicing

Working hard to acquire C4D (Cinema 4D) modeling skills. In a few weeks time I am ready to make something that resembles an airplane.

Modeling practice in Cinema 4D - Airplane

On-line interactive book

I am currently in the process of creating and interactive on-line book that contains some of my poetry (or attempts at poetry if you will). You can scroll through the pages by dragging the page corners like in a real book or by clicking on them. Some poems cover two pages. I placed a small red triangle after the first part of the poem. If you click on that you will go to the part on the next page. It is more of an indication that you have not yet reached the end of the poem, but it is also click-able.

Click to go to the interactive book

The horror of using Office files in DTP

When using Microsoft Word documents and Excel-files to compose a book in InDesign one inevitably encounters the lack of logic and structure Microsoft and its users included in their products. First, the new type of Office interface with the ribbon is horrific to work with. Functions are buried deep underneath a shipload of illogically designed icons, while the documents that are compiled lack, whatever is required to build a sensible parametric structure.

Adobe InDesign, Scribus, LyX, VivaDesigner, Quark Xpress, Affinity Publisher

Recently I have been (re-)learning InDesign again. I have an old CS3 version, but now tried the new CS6. The program is impressive in any respect. The structure and logic are beyond that of most other programs. Perhaps only a number of 3D applications are able to match it. A lot of digging in the menus is required to make full use of it, but once that is done the program allows to produce the most complex documents for any purpose imaginable: print, web, animations etc. there is very little the is not capable of.

InDesign screendump

Reconsidering course methods

After considering many things we have decided to go about airbrush classes differently. Different than what is commonly done. There is a strong dislike of the commercialized approach. Commerce and truly creative skill are rarely good companions. One always violates the other to some extent. And since humans are analog beings we aim to focus on that - on the creative side. It still requires skill, but it should not serve commercial means in our view.

Brainstorming about the Perfect Airbrush

A few things bother me in even the most advanced airbrushes. Improvements can be made in the handling and maintenance department. For the time being I thought of the following:

• Trigger control should allow more accurate needle movement
• Triggers should be placed closer to the needle tip
• Paint containers can be separate from the main housing (connected with a paint supply hose)
• Assembly and dis-assembly should be made easier
• Parts should be less vulnerable and should be constructed in a way that allows to mount and dis-mount them without the use of tools
• Airbrushes should accept various needle / nozzle sizes
• Airbrushes should not leak paint during needle cleaning
• Paint cups should not obstruct the view on the artwork

The perfect airbrush