Punchcard: VideoTrace

• Download project files for this tutorial here (52 Mb, it’s the same file as for the previous tutorial);
• A video of this tutorial is available here;

1. Loading the project Use the ‘File|Open Project’ command in the menu bar to open the file ‘block_tutorial.vtp’.
2. The Zoom Tool For detailed tracing in a small region of an image, use the Zoom Tool to zoom in on that region.
Left click and drag to change the 2D position of the frame. Move the frame so that the region of interest is near the centre of the window.
Right click and drag to zoom in, scaling the region until it fills most of the window.
3. The Snap Plane Use the Sketch Tool to draw the front face of this block.
Move to a view where both of these blocks are visible, and use the Zoom Tool to scale the view so that they fill most of the window.
When modelling aligned objects like these two blocks, the Snap Plane Tool lets you set a plane that is used to align the models of these objects in 3D. Select the Snap Plane Tool and click on the new face to set the snap plane.
New points added while the snap plane is active will be set to lie on this plane. Draw the face of the second block with the Sketch Tool . With the snap plane active, yellow guide lines will appear, which can be used to align edges and vertices on the plane. By default, these are set to snap along existing edges and vertices. The snapping mode can also be set to align with the axes of the snapping plane. The snapping mode is chosen from the menu at the top of the window.
To inspect the 3D structure created so far, switch to the Virtual View by clicking the button at the top left of the window. Select the Navigate Tool , and right click and drag on one of the faces to rotate the view. By changing the view, we can see that both faces lie on the snap plane.
Click on the button at the top left of the window to return to the Image View . To model the bridge between the two blocks, start by selecting the Divide Tool , and adding two points at the base of the bridge.
Add the front face of the bridge with the Sketch Tool . As the snap plane is still active, this face will also be aligned with the snap plane.
Add a curve to the bridge with the Sketch Tool . Deactivate the snap plane by clicking ‘Reset Plane’ at the top of the window.
3. The Select Components Tool The Select Components Tool is used to select faces, vertices, and edges. By selecting a group of faces, operations such as extrusion can be applied to multiple faces at once. To select the three faces, hold shift and click on each with the Select Components Tool .
To extrude the set, click and drag on one of the faces with the Extrude Tool . Click ‘Commit’ at the top of the window to complete the modelling.

You’ve now created a 3D model in VideoTrace. You can generate textures for the model(s) from the images using the tools under the ‘Tasks’ menu, and export it from the ‘File’ menu.