Dodecagon

The Letters & Numbers furniture library contains multiple formats of characters and numbers. Many punctuation and special characters are included that you will not find in other alphabet libraries.

There is a special set of letters and numbers with a filler. The fillers can be used to fill in the gaps when you use the letter or number as a window to create a hole in a wall. Using these it's a lot easier to create a clock or display front because you can use them to create a hole and at the same time have the fillers to fill in the parts that should remain closed. With these you can create any front where the letters and numbers are embeded in the front with a flush front surface. Make the letters a colored glass and you can create beautiful displays.

Below is a tutorial how to use the letters with a filler to create a display. It looks very long but it is very easy if you follow the instructions.

How to create a display with transparent letters

You simply start with dragging al the letters you need from the catalog in your 2D pane. Make sure you select the letters with a filler for those that need it like the 'o' and 'p'. Arange them the way you like the text to look. Where needed or wanted you can resize individual letters and make sure the elevations are correct. If you want to make certain letters the same height then make sure you check "keep proportions" before you set the height in the modify furniture dialog. The depth makes no difference as you will see.

When you are satisfied with the way it looks you export each letter and import it again but now as "Door or window".

Draw a wall and resize it so it fits around your text. If you are smart you make sure it is centered on the x and y-coordinates. This will make aligning the new frame much easier. Make sure you work on a level with elevation 0 and no level below otherwise the exported wall will be higher than you sets it's height.

Move your "window letters" in the wall. Check that their position and elevation is as you intended.

Using the alignments you figured out before the export you can copy that to re-create your text with the "window letters" but now in the wall.

Now export and import only the wall, not the letters. Your imported frame should have your text cutout where you had the letters in the wall.

If you were smart and positioned the wall at the 0,0 coordinates you can now easily remove the wall and set the x and y coordinates of your imported frame to 0,0. It will will look like the wall you just remove is back!

Make all letters invisible except the letters wih a filler. For those you modify them and make only the material Letter invisible, not the material Filler.

If you did that correctly you will have a frame showing with the fillers replacing the missing parts of the frame. Select the frame and the fillers and export them to "frame.obj".

Leave the frame and letters where they are! Do not move them!

Edit the frame.obj file. Replace all lines that start with "usemtl wall_" with "usemtl Frame". Now replace all lines with "usemtl Filler" also with "usemtl Frame". Save the file.

Edit the frame.mtl file and replace the first "newmtl " line with "newmtl Frame". Remove the other block(s) with "newmtl". Save the file.

Import frame.obj and you will have your frame with the single material property "Frame".

(I gave the frame a darker color for better visibility.).

In your 2D pane make the letters visible again and make the fillers invisible. Leave them at the position where they are!

Remove only the frame and replace it with the frame.obj you imported. The 0,0 position makes that easy. Now export the frame with all the letters as "display.obj" and import it again.

You will see that your display has three material names: Frame (the one you edited in the obj/mtl files), Letter (from the small letters) and None from the capital E. You can change the None to Letter like you did in the frame.obj and .mtl files but this leaves the option to give the "E" a different color.

Your display is finished but let's change the display to a led lighted display.

Edit the display.mtl file and add a line with "d 0.8" at the end of the blocks with "newmtl Letter" and "newmtl None". This will make the letters a little transparent without making it as transparent as glass. Import the display.obj file. (You can experiment with setting the 'illum 1' value of the letters to 0. 'illum 0' should give them a glow effect. It softens the edges.)

Build a little box at the back of the display using box objects. Use a lightpanel from the catalog that you resize and rotate and put it against the back of the little box you created. Set the light power for the lightpanel to 10%. The box is to enclose the light from the lightpanel so it only shines through the letters and doesn't leak to the sides.

Of course you close the front of the box with your display. The image shows the parts that you put together, not the enclosed box.

Lights only work when you import them from a Furniture Library. This means you have to export your model and add it to a Sweet Home 3D furniture library. After you import the library you can add your led display to the 2D pane and set the power in the Modify furniture dialog.

Of course you can't see the lights in the 3D view but lights will show up if you generate a photo (use one of the two best levels).

And that's how you build your own custom led display!

Try it and create your own clock with Led numbers.