Seamless Brick

[dzatto]

Just thought I'd share something I just worked out.

There was a thread in here somewhere that talked about brick materials. I use the Acme Masonry Designer. http://www.brick.com/md/index.htm

It's a great tool to create custom brick patterns. The problem is, they aren't seemless. But I just figured out a simple way to make it seamless. Just crop the image in photoshop or, if you don't have that, the basic windows picture manager works too.


Crop it just to the leftt of the first mortar joint. On the other end, crop it just to the left of the mortor joint. Basically, you are leaving the mortor on the right side and getting rid of it on the left. You are also making the brick pattern on the odd rows start and stop with a half brick.

The results look great to me. I can't tell where one stops and the other begins. Best of all it's free and easy.

Acme Masonry Designer also creates an alpha .png for your relief pattern. Do the same to this image so the joints line up.

Hope this helps you guys.

[tcatana]

been using this for years. There are a lot more brick and CMU manufacturers who use the same software, including pavers. Just do a search for Masonry Designer on your favorite search engine.

Just change the size of the panel to an odd number, then you will not have to crop. For some reason even numbers cause half a brick at the end, but Odd ones do not.

http://www.beldenbrick.com/

http://www.henrybrick.com/MasonryDesigner.html

http://www.colorplan.com/default.aspx?pageid=15

http://www.interstatebrick.com/masonry_designer/

[dzatto]

been using this for years. There are a lot more brick and CMU manufacturers who use the same software, including pavers. Just do a search for Masonry Designer on your favorite search engine.

Just change the size of the panel to an odd number, then you will not have to crop. For some reason even numbers cause half a brick at the end, but Odd ones do not.

http://www.beldenbrick.com/

http://www.henrybrick.com/MasonryDesigner.html

http://www.colorplan.com/default.aspx?pageid=15

http://www.interstatebrick.com/masonry_designer/

If you have a running pattern, it will have to put in a half brick at the end. At least it does with Acme's designer no matter what size I make the panel.

I'll check out the other designers you posted, though. Maybe I can get some more stuff. :mrgreen:

so if they all use the same software, everything's the same except the product lines are different, right? I mean I wouldn't be able to do anything different from one to the other correct?

[tcatana]

The software is written by the same company and tailored to each of the manufacturers product lines.

[Munkholm]

Crop it just to the leftt of the first mortar joint. On the other end, crop it just to the left of the mortor joint. Basically, you are leaving the mortor on the right side and getting rid of it on the left. You are also making the brick pattern on the odd rows start and stop with a half brick.

IF you have Photoshop, you can easily make the pattern TRULY seamless - You just need to use the Offset tool (Filter > Other > Offset) for half the width, and half the height, and then make use of the magic tools like the Clone Stamp tool, to clean up the horizontal and vertical centers (Without touching the edges)

[patricks]

I wish they would update that software. The Save As boxes look like Windows 3.1 relics. :shock:

[dzatto]

IF you have Photoshop, you can easily make the pattern TRULY seamless - You just need to use the Offset tool (Filter > Other > Offset) for half the width, and half the height, and then make use of the magic tools like the Clone Stamp tool, to clean up the horizontal and vertical centers (Without touching the edges)
Well, I have photoshop, but have no clue how to use it. :Oops:

I know I know. I'm learning Revit now so one program at a time!