Les,
You're exactly right, Uncle Joe would have to be standing with his back touching the door for this method to be reliable. Also, the photo would have to taken with the camera situated at a right angle to the front of the house and equadistant from the ends. There would also be a small error introduced at the ends the house because they are farther from the lens than the middle.
This method isn't absolutely accurate but would certainly allow you to come pretty close to replicating the prototype. You'd have to introduce some "fudge" factors to compensate for the position of the reference figure from the the structure, angle of the camera, distance of the camera from the structure, etc.
This method also works well when estimating the height of a tree or building or even a hill.
Walt
Walt,
Not nitpicking, but wouldn't the distance Uncle Joe is standing away from the front of the house enter in somewhere?
BTW, thanks to both you and Tom for the refresher. I'd lost that piece of info in the Big Computer Upgrade (that left a lot of my personal stuff in the old HD).
Les
thanks uys tgif
cheers
You have to have a known point of reference. For example: if you have a picture of uncle Joe standing directly in front of a house and you know that uncle Joe is 6' tall, and when you measure him on the photo you find that he is 1/2" tall, then the scale is 1/2" = 6'. Then you'd divide 72" (6') by .5 (1/2"). 72/.5 = 144 . So, anything you measure on that photo (in inches) times the scale (144) will give you the real life dimension in inches. Example: if you measure the width of the house in the photo and it's 4", then multiply that by 144 and you get 576". Divide 576 by 12 (to get feet) and you find that the house is 48' wide.
Hope that helps.
] hay thanks ill keep that i mind that rally helps
Cherrs
To give you a starting point, here is a quick hint. At 1:30 a house front door should be ~2.48 inches tall (call it 2.5"), a business front door should be 2.6 inches tall.
As to what it all means a ratio i.e. X:ZZ translates to X inches of the model equals ZZ inches in real life. Take the actual measurement of real life in inches, divide by the scale ratio and you have the dimension in scale. For a door that is 72 inches tall in real life, convert to 1:32, divide 72 by 32 and you get 2.25. The front door of that model house will be 2.25 inches tall. A building that is 40 foot across the front: 40 x 12 (40 ft times 12 inches per foot) equals 480 inches. Divide 480 inches by 32 equals a model that is 15 inches wide.
Tom Trigg
ya how do you scale it down too 1:32 or even 1:29. and what does it means any?
Cheers
do any of you now how to find scales like having a picture and make a scratch bult car or truck from it?
Get the Garden Railways newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month