Looking for suggestions...

Howdy folks!

First let's jump ahead to what I'm looking to end up with: a printing plate. That is, a flat panel with raised artwork that will be heated and used to impress gold foil into leather.

Second, here's what I have: artwork I'm in the process of cleaning up, and can be converted to a vector document in Adobe illustrator. I've been doing vests with various combinations of formats and programs on the artwork still in progress.

What I've been trying to do is import the vector artwork into sketchup (which I have, the free version) that will allow me to extrude the artwork. Is that making sense? Good. My problem is, I'm having no luck getting my artwork into sketchup to do the necessary work as a test. No combination of versions (7.1 on my desktop with the dwg plugin, still no success). I've saved as .ai, .eps. and through Acrobat saved it as pdf. Still no luck. The art work is way to complicated to outline off of a bitmapped image in sketchup.

So I would love any suggestions that would not involve downloading too many more programs. Or if someone is able to do a simple conversion for me (though it might be something I could end up wanting to do on a regular basis. Sorry I'm not being more specific about what programs I have used, but I'm usually moving between computers. Not all the programs I have access to are on the same computer... but through work I have access to Adobe CS4, so if something can be done to prepare the image through Adobe, that would be great. Thanks, I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

Followup to my own question: while my designs are complicated, what i need to do with them is pretty simple. I've just discovered the intermediate design tools. Since I'm only extruding, they look perfect for my needs. Wondering if anyone has any feedback or experience to share... some of the lines are going to be fairly thin, and I'm thinking of outputting into either steel of alumite. Any input would be appreciated.

Hi vicvalis, welcome to Shapeways

I've successfully imported a DWG from Adobe Illustrator into Sketchup Pro (which I use) for a forum member here, but he needed to add anchor points to the DWG export for it to work properly.

If that doesn't work, you may need to scale up the DWG 100x before exporting, as Sketchup doesn't work well with tiny lines/faces, then just scale back down after importing.

The best thing you can do is read and understand the design rules before beginning designing, then work within those constraints. If you have more specific questions later, its helpful to post an image to accompany your question in the forum.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the info. One of the intermediate design tools allowed me to do the simple extrude. When I'm done cleaning up my graphics, I'll try a model and see how it looks.

jeff