1. Home
  2. Electronics Design
  3. Looking for software

Looking for software

Not a design question at all... But here's the concept.

I use a flatbed scanner to take pictures of various electronic parts. In order to measure/see part interference/fit, I would like to be able to simply superimpose two scans in "real time" to see what happens.

The editing software I have does it more in a "figure out settings, then wait for processing" style.

Would there be a simple utility to put one picture as a background, and another picture as a transparent foreground I can rotate and translate about the screen?

TIA

Reply to
a7yvm109gf5d1
Loading thread data ...

Best solution is to use a 3-D CAD program and make simple solid or = surface=20 models of the parts. If these are PCB parts, look into TINA and Kicad. = For=20 more general purpose use I recommend IMSI TurboCAD. You can get the pro=20 version cheap on eBay and upgrade to more recent versions if you need = more=20 features. I have version 15 which is pretty good. You can get it where I = did=20 for $149:

formatting link
CaXw

Paul=20

Reply to
P E Schoen

I take from your post that you have already sized the images correctly and the units match.

Try InkScape or GIMP. Both are free and have Windows and Linux versions. I think InkScape is a little better at allowing you to rotate and move. Both will let you set the transparency of the foreground image.

However - these are not "point and shoot" apps. You need to spend some time with them to understand the ins and outs. There are some good video tutorials on the web.

--
Joe Chisolm
Reply to
Joe Chisolm

n
n

Yes, simply by scanning at a fixed DPI, the pictures I have are all the same scale, and I can measure stuff. This is more of a mechanical thing, really, and no mechanical drawings or 3D models are available.

s.

That's what I meant.

d

Open Office write has transparency controls and lets me move junk around the screen, but then it doesn't have (or I haven't found) a way to measure pixels.

Reply to
a7yvm109gf5d1

Photoshop Elements. Put each part in its own layer, and then set the opacity of each layer to suit your needs. You could get fancy, and use the PSE's magic extraction utility so that each part contains only pixels for that specific part, and nothing else (i.e, no background) For example a torus could contain no pixels at its center.

You have total control over the scale settings (including dpi) in PSE.

Might not be the best solution, but it's cheap (under $75, I would think), quick, and easy. (And also the first thing that comes to mind -- which should never be construed at the "best solution". :) Plus, you could have hundreds of layers... each movable, rotatable, etc..., and the ability to set visibility ON or OFF by layer.

-mpm

Reply to
mpm

...or use the gratis and libre version:

formatting link

Reply to
JeffM

GIMP will go that. Has a bit of a learning curve though.

?-)

Reply to
josephkk

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.