Export to graphics program.

[Inoram]

Has anyone designed up something like a business card in Creo?

Or maybe just a logo then import into a graphics program (Photoshop, etc) to finish it?

I was hoping maybe someone had some tips for doing this.

I have done it a little and one thing I think I figure out was, I drew everything BIG in Creo, thinking it would be better quality when I shrink it down. Currently, that seems like a mistake, so now I am trying to draw stuff on size and see if the export quality is better.

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[dschenken]

Does artwork for decals and information plates count?

I generally go with postscript file output and fix the problems PTC leaves in there. It is easy to edit (notepad, or the like) to get the line widths you like. Be sure to change setlinecap and setline join with a prefix value of 1 to get rounded ends on line segments instead of the awkward default clipping, especially if using the default font.

Photoshop can rasterize the Postscript into a nice bitmap if you like.

The missing part for a great answer is - what is your printing destination? Different places/methods have unique requirements, so it is a good idea to find a place you like and ask them about their ideal input.

Finally, how did making things big seem like a mistake?

[Inoram]

David,

Sure, probably anything that runs into a printed media is similar process. I know it will be rare overall as people that do that work will mostly use other software.

I will have to look at the settings you suggest, at the moment, I am not even sure where they are.

As far as print destination, I made some business cards at the beginning of the year, and I made part of it in Creo, and after a lot of exporting and fooling around it ultimately went to Vistaprint. The actual cards themselves turned out fine, (the print work), except they are matte and in hindsight I don't like that. I also made 2-side cards and I want 1-side. Just some things I want to update. Also, I will end with the same logo on my webpage and letterhead, etc.

In making thingsbig, which is probably operator error, the way things pixelate it's turns lines into large stair-steps, but in saying that, when you up the DPI it seems to create unsually large files. And business cards (at least throught Vistaprint) are only 72 dpi (if I remember right).

[dschenken]

72 dpi is pretty low. 300dpi is where people ordinarily don't see stair stepping with unaided vision within arm's length. In some printing processes, like newpapers, the dpi isn't very high, but the dot-size is variable. It takes about a 600 dpi laser printer to duplicate a 96 dpi half-tone.

[TomD.inPDX]

Matt, 1st you need to understand the setting of the internal graphics engine that Creo uses for their presentation on the screen. See below for recommended settings.

I'm also going to assume you are trying to do this with Photorender. I have never had good quality outputs from Photorender. It always seems "fuzzy" and typically, when graphic qualities are set high, I get a lot of artifacts.

The best luck I've had was to cut the object out of the "scene". Photorender will let you make large images but maybe it is worth it to just mask out only the good bits on Photoshop and replace it with your own background.

For the life of me I cannot make realistic images using the core software. If you have renderers that are dedicated to 3D rendering, use them instead... or Photolux, of course, if you have the extension.

I have come up with some good effect with geometry. Most often I pick up a screen capture. Here is a cross I did with a background effects from geometry:

screen cap

processed outside Creo

Effects geometry

The cross is truly 3D and the background just some formed surfaces.

I also made this with 3D characters and manipulating the screen background settings:

...using Creo's Shaded w/ Reflections setting - which I find to be better and often easier to use then Photorender.

I used screen captures for all of these. If you need a larger master image, you can then capture several quadrants and stitch them back together in something like Photoshop. Just make some markers to help line up the image. A 1 pixel error will show up just fine to make the correction.

As for the settings:

Make the shade quality 50 and turn on small surfaces and turn off levels of detail.

and whatever else you like.

Also edge quality very high and anti-aliesing 16X ...and show smooth lines.

This will get you a long way to getting a good screen image. However, be careful... as we discussed before, these high quality settings save graphics data in your part and assembly files and makes them HUGE. Before you start doing this, remember to add to your config.pro file: save_model_display wireframe

[Inoram]

Oops, I forgot to reply to this. Thanks for the input. I was not really looking for rendering, it's really more like 2D work. Just trying to get sharp graphics exported, or maybe vector type data? I have not been working on this, I have been side tracked with some other stuff. But I need to get back to it.

[dschenken]

To better understand where you are looking for improvement - post a representative example and write up what you don't like about it. Even if think you are far off right now, it gives a starting point to build from.

[Inoram]

I can post a picture when i get back to it. One thing I was doing was designing a logo for a business card. Part drawn and part just text with a font I found.

[TomD.inPDX]

Matt, most issues with graphics quality are graphics driver related. An exported DXF, which is vector, is as smooth and crisp as one can get since it defines a circle as a mathematical equation. However, few programs bother to do a high resolution representation of this fact. You would need to convert the object to a very highly faceted object so the export would be represented by a lot of very short lines. You also want to make sure that the export is set to a high quality so that overlapping lines are removed from you 2D object. Many ways to accomplish both of these. I ran into this recently with a CNC programmer that didn't like seeing the jaggies on his screen... and found that this was only the interface, the part routed perfectly.

As to a screen capture or other form, the anti-aliesing and smooth lines setting should get a better quality display on the screen. I find that exporting drawings in raster format are decent outputs as well.

As David asked, what is the application? I export all 2D work from a drawing into a vector format. And yes, this does generate output files with circles, splines (or polylines), and ellipses as well as lines. These are considered "zero thickness" entities derived by a formula.