Enlaging 3-views?

[Spinner]

I've been building up references for the Vultee Veangence dive bomber for ages.
Finally have to accept that a tiny little 3-view from a book is the best plan I'm going to get. Have a fair number of pics, so its not that bad.
My question is what sort of file type will handle being drasticly resized the best? I'll scan it into photoshop and resize it there.
Any sugestions will be greatfully received. Good plans for this aircraft dont appear to exist.

[pete.cook]

Unfortunately, scans are usually bitmaps, so they don't scale up too well. A better solution would be to increase the size of the intial scan, by increasing the dpi. Average good quality scans at 300 dpi are usually good enough for A4 size scans, but to increase the detail, trying scanning at 600 dpi or greater. It will take a lot longer to scan, but the resulting image may be what you need.

[kevjon]

These plans look Ok http://www.airwar.ru/other/draw/vulteevengeancekr.html

See 3D tips best of in the obstacle course but I and Skyraider usually set up the plans in max to be 1 pixel = 1cm. Therefore a plane with a 1200cm wingspan would be 1200 pixels wide in max.

[Spinner]

These plans look Ok http://www.airwar.ru/other/draw/vulteevengeancekr.html

See 3D tips best of in the obstacle course but I and Skyraider usually set up the plans in max to be 1 pixel = 1cm. Therefore a plane with a 1200cm wingspan would be 1200 pixels wide in max.

:eek:
How the ...!
I've been through that sight many times. Totally stunned to have missed them.
Thanks M8.
Yeah, I've picked up on that pixel/cm tip.
Seem to have nearly mastered setting up to my liking, except for one thing.
Can you place a second texture on a reference plane?
ie a plane object with a front texture on one side and the rear image on the other. Or will I need to create two planes back to back (maybe very thin box)?
Thanks for bearing with my noob queries.

[kevjon]

I create two planes, one for the front of the aircraft and one for the back of the aircraft. The plane for the front goes behind the tailplane (normals face towards the front of the aircraft) and the plane for the rear view goes in front of the spinner (normals face toward the tail). Hope it makes sense.

Here is but one tutorial on setting up blueprints http://www.suurland.com/tutorials_blueprint_max.htm

[Spinner]

Yep makes sense.
I started with the 'box' setup. Then moved to the 'cross' configuration which was what got me thinking of the two sided plane. AC3D uses background images in its ortho views but nothing shows in its perspective window. So moving to 3DS Max pushed me to rethinking my aproach.

[Skyraider3D]

The box approach is definitely safer/faster, in my opinion. I used to use seperate planes, but it's easier to make a mistake.

Do not use scaling to size the box. Instead move the vertices around after collapsing or of course simply use the size spinners to get it right from the start :)

[Spinner]

Thanks for the tip. I can use all I get atm.
I'm laying the planes out in a box pattern but not making a box, 'cause I tailor each plane size to the image. ie with or without undercarriage.
Interesting learning a new program. I'll get familiar with it or die in the attempt.