Creating Plant Cutouts

The first step in creating a cutout plant is to place the image onto the floor plan. Use the Figure tool to do this. Make sure that the image you use is in a currently loaded library.

Place the image onto the floor plan.

Draw a line around the image to provide a reference edge, and lock the layers.

The next step is to use a fill polygon to trace around the plant image. Use a 25 % fill with a transparent background pen, so that you can see the image at all times.

Its no good placing either too few or too many vertices around the plant. Ideally you should use around 200 – 300 vertices. This will ensure that the plant 3D model generates quickly, while the outline clearly represents the plant.

To ensure that you include no more than 3oo vertices, use a system.

1. First place vertices at 30 key points on the plant’s outline. Keep the points evenly spaced if possible. Points may be spaced more closely in areas of intense detail or further apart in areas of less outline detail (eg. a smooth, straight trunk of a tree).

Ensure that at least one vertex is touching each edge of the image (left, right, bottom, top) and that no vertices extend beyond the image.

2. Now zoom in to view each pair of adjacent vertices in turn. Between each pair of vertices, add 5 to 10 vertices as required to allow for the extra detail.

It should take no more than 30 minutes to trace a fill polygon around a plant.