KB77988557: Studio Toolkit for Labels - How to create a 3D shape with conical label to match an existing conical die line

Description

You've received a conical die line drawing with or without warped artwork and you want to use Studio Toolkit for Labels in Adobe^® Illustrator^® to create a 3D shape with a conical label that matches the existing die lines.

Procedure

1. Open the artwork file in Adobe^® Illustrator^®, you should at least have a conical die line in there.
   
2. Open Esko's "Cups.xls" file (click to download) in Microsoft Excel.
   
   The green conic area in the Excel file represents the conical die lines.

3. Now, draw two perfect circles (perfectly aligned both horizontally and vertically on top of each other). These two circles need to match the top and bottom lines of your conical die line.

   It is imperative to match the die lines perfectly.

   In case you've very accurately created the two circles, you will see that their centers nicely align. That's a good indication that the circles are accurate.
   

4. Select the biggest circle and in the Adobe^® Illustrator^® Control bar, check the width value and use this value as input for the first entry in the Cups.xls file, the Large Diameter entry.
   In the example, the width of the biggest circle is 893,186mm which is filled in the Cups.xls.
5. Select the smallest circle, check the width value in Adobe^® Illustrator^®'s Control bar and fill in the value in Cups.xls for the Small Diameter entry.
   In the example, the width of the smallest circle is 779,03mm which is filled in in the Cups.xls.
6. Now we only need to know the angle of the conical die line. In order to get that angle value, you can draw a line starting from the center of the circles and going up to the left top of the conic label, as shown below:
   
7. Next, select the Rotate tool in the Adobe^® Illustrator^® Toolbar.
   
8. And with the line you've just created still selected, click once in the center of the circle, so the starting point of your line. This will place the rotation pivot on that spot.
9. Zoom in as far as possible when setting the rotation pivot point as this needs to be as exact as possible.
   
10. Now, you can simply click and drag the line (rotating around the rotation pivot point) from left to right, so that it eventually matches the right side of the conical die line.
11. Adobe^® Illustrator^® will automatically display the angle of your rotation (check readout next to the line).
    
12. Fill in this angle value in the Cups.xls.
13. The example results in the following:
    
14. Which gives the following 3D resulting values (auto-calculated):
    
15. Draw a first horizontal line with the given Large Radius value.
    
16. Next draw the second horizontal line with the given Small Radius value.
    
17. Create a new vertical line with the given Height value.
    
18. Combine all lines. Take the two horizontal lines first and align both ends (i.e. right hand side ends) on the same vertical axis.
    
19. Next, take the vertical line and align it to the top horizontal line.
20. Then move the second horizontal line (bottom) at the same height as the vertical line's bottom anchor point:
    
21. Now, rotate the vertical line so that it ends up at the same x-coordinate as the bottom line's starting point.
    
22. Zoom in to the bottom line and move it up until it touches the vertical line.
    
23. Optionally, select all three lines and join them into one line.
24. Create a 3D shape of the outline with the Revolve and Add Labels feature from Studio Toolkit for Labels and add a label that covers the complete area (making sure that the "base" value is 0).
    
    
25. Save this as a structural design file (.dae) and place it on top of the existing graphics/ die line. As you can see below, the blue structural design information matches the existing die lines.