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Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 3:09 pm
by Blockchip
Firstly may i congratulate you on having one of the most informative and easily navigable websites on the net.
I know you have been asked many times about software and you advise Turbocad as a good starter package. I would like to be able to photograph an existing driveway and house and then using software 'fill in' the old driveway with an image of how a block paved one would look so that i can send it to customers with my quotation. Is this possible with Turbocad or any other software packages currently on the market?Do any of them have different paving designs already in them?
Thanks very much for your help.
Kevin
Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 11:01 pm
by Tony McC
There have been a few attempts at this over the years, and Bradstone/Charcon have another bash at it on their latest website, but the big limitation is perspective. With homogenous looking surfaces, such as plain concrete, bitmac or gravels, masking and painting an existing photo to show a new drive or patio is dead easy, but for modular pavings, such as flags or blocks, it's damned hard work getting the perspective to look right, and is usually not worth the enormous amount of effort required to achieve anything reasonable looking.
You can create specialist 'textures' or 'renders' with TurboCad Pro and AutoCad, but I can't see it it being cost-effective just at the moment. AutoCad will set you back around 3 grand plus for a full rendering package, and while TurboCad is cheaper (around 500 quid) it's nowhere near as good at renders, so you're faced with high-cost reasonable quality, or medium cost low quality images.
You could use summat like Photoshop to flood paint a masked area on an existing image, but the time needed to create a flood pattern is hardly worth the effort.
It's a nice dream, and it will become a reality, eventually, but just for now, it's still a dream.
Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 11:49 pm
by Blockchip
I thought you might say that! 
Thanks for a very prompt and full reply, it really is very much appreciated!
It is now nearly midnight and i have been on the site for ages now, writing down loads of info. If only every website was as good as this.How many hours do we spend trawling through some flashy site with loads of effects that take ages to download?Your site has loads of animations etc but you've somehow managed to keep the file sizes down and everything works superfast...you really should consider setting up another business advising companies on how their websites should work!!
Take care and thanks again
Kevin