So this is what I want to do as my final project model. Using the image of the Cottesloe pine trees that I have decided on. Firstly I opened the original Photograph in Photoshop. I then adjusted the image to black and white. Then I simplified the image into just the silhouette of the trees. The next step was to take that simplified image into Illustrator, here I continued to reduce the complexity of the image. This was done by using the live sketch command to stylise the outline of the trees. I then used illustrator to turn the picture into a vector file. I had to do a tutorial on this to figure out how it could be done. It basically came down to turning the file into a bitmap and the re opening it in illustrator and then using the embed and live trace functions to create an outline of the image. This outline was then exported as a dxf file and opened in Autocad. Once in Autocad the now line work of the image was cleaned up, removing all of the extra un necessary lines.
The line were then taken into Rhino.
Then I began extruding the lines to create solid objects.
Then I gave the model some extents to exist within.
I then subtracted the main outline of the trees from the larger square.
This subtraction would represent how the image could be created using inserts within the form work of a concrete wall.
Once I had the model basically as i wished I did a test render to see what the progress looked like.
During the rendering process I could see that the surface of the solid was not properly meshing within the boundary of the image of the trees.
The completed render shows where the complexity of the model and the curves of the tree outlines had caused the surface of the solid to fail.
This image shows the way in which i tackled the failed surfacing of the solid. Firstly I had to split the solid into two. Then by exploding the original line work and the re building the lines into new polylines that divided the outline of the trees into section I was able to extrude them successfully.
The process of rendering.
Some initial renders of the final object.
Some better renders of the wall with the image existing within it.