Hi from Canada

Hey all,
This is a totally new venture I'm looking into. I'm a war-gamer and have always wanted to design my own models/miniatures but until now had no idea where to start. As for software and experience I'm nil in both. Haven't done any 3d stuff, aside from drafting class years back in high-school. Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated. Stupid question, has software advanced to the point that I can scan a 3 view picture of what I want into the computer and it renders that in 3D?
Thanks again for any help you can provide.

Hello

Welcome to Shapeways. I started off in a similar position last autumn.

Following recommendations here, I picked up Blender (www.blender.org), a freeware program, and am quite happy with it. They also have good manuals and tutorials on their site. That said, it still took me several weeks of dabbling to get to my first model. With experience, you get much quicker than that,

AFAIK, there is no Software that allows you to enter a 3-view drawing and get out a 3d-Model. It is possible to use a set of pictures to make a 3d-Item, but you need something like 50 pictures from a lot of angles.

But Blender allows you to put an image as background to the screen, so you can model off that.

Greetings
Karl Heinz

Check out http://123dcatch.com/

Hello Stonysmith

I have tried 123dcatch using photos and it worked reasonably well.

But from pictures...Have you actually used it with a 3-View-drawing of, say, a car and got good results?
From Something like this?
http://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprints/cars/dkw/4295/view/ dkw_munga_6_(1960)/

I would be interested in how you can make that work.

Greetings
Karl Heinz

No, a simple 3view is likely not to work in 123dCatch.. it depends upon much more information (more angles) to work properly.

Thanks all for the advice. No easy way out, so I shall have to wade in.