How to Convert Text to Spline

A spline is a line that smoothly connects each point of a design as you draw that design in a two- or three-dimensional imaging application. Some imaging apps have object types that they use to represent specifically splines. These apps may also have objects for representing just text. Depending on what imaging app you're using, it may be possible to directly convert a text object into a spline object. However, if the text you want to convert is in a nondigital form (i.e., book or other printed material), the text must first be digitized before it can be converted to a spline.

Things You'll Need

• Imaging software able to create spline objects

Instructions

1. Get or make an image file containing a direct view of the text you want to convert: Use a digital camera to take a photo of the text, if it's in printed form, then load the image from the camera into your computer. Go to step 3.

2. Right-click on an image and select "Copy," if these conditions are true:

   - the image is on your computer (in the form of web-page content, for example).

   - the "Copy" command appears when you right-click the image.

   Press the "Alt" and "Print Screen" keys on your computer keyboard, if the image is already on your computer but cannot by copied using the instructions just given. Paste the image into Windows Paint or a similar utility, and use that utility to save the image as a JPEG file.

3. Continue the conversion, if your imaging software can directly convert text objects into spline objects. Proceed to step 7 if it can't.

   Create a new text object in your imaging software.

4. Select the typeface (e.g.: "Arial," "Times New Roman") that best matches the typeface in the image files you made in steps 1 and 2. Then, re-create the text in your imaging software: select your app's text-entry mode and type in the text manually.

   (Alternatively, you may be able to use image-recognition software to convert the image files directly into text, which you can then copy and paste into your image app's text object.)

5. Select the text object you just created, then choose your imaging software's tool for converting text to splines. Look for this tool in a context menu that opens when you right-click the text object. Seek tools with names such as "Convert to Editable Spline," or "Convert to Shape."

6. Save the file containing the text object you converted to a spline. Continue working with this object as you would other objects in your imaging app: For example, create lights, assign materials, and render the spline. (This step ends the conversion process. Do not complete the remaining steps.)

7. If you are continuing from step 3, create a plane object in your imaging software, then load the image file you made in steps 1 or 2 onto the plane.

8. Enter your imaging app's mode for creating spline objects. Then, create the spline by plotting its points such that they trace over the text image in the plane you made in the previous step. Exit the spline-creation mode after duplicating each line of the text image. Go to step 6 once you've converted the text.

References

• Digital Arts Guild: Text Logo
• Tutorials 3D: Splines
• Autodesk 3ds Max "Splines and Extended Splines" (from 3d Max's help file)

Resources

• Image Recognition with Neural Networks