Feb 14th, 2013

Inspired by some guys who makes custom panels for Photoshop, I decided to make my own. And here it is, I made “Isometrify” — Adobe Photoshop CS5+ extension than helps transform objects into isometry and generate custom sized grid for it.

Some notices

Isometry Angle

In my panel I use angle of isometry that equals 26.565 degrees, it’s commonly used in pixel art world. Math isometry has 30 degrees. In future I’m planing to make angle defined by user.

Working with bitmaps

Isometrify doesn’t work good with bitmaps, it’s inteded to use with shape layers only. You still can use it with raster graphics, but results will be not so good.

Pixel grid snapping

There’s some issues with pixel snapping while transform, sometimes shapes don’t fit into pixel grid, so you’ll have to move it manually with direct selection tool. At least in CS5, I guess in CS6 situation is better.

Isometric Top / Left/ Right

First three buttons are made for transforming shapes in each direction. You can trasnform group of objects and text layers too.

Left

Right

Top

Generate Grid

This button generates isometric grid pattern with customized size. Take a notice, that size you enter is for size of one of the sides of square:

Pattern will be saved in your current asset with name “Isometry Grid N”, where N is size of grid

Extended version

I’m planing to release new version in future, so at this moment I’m working on functions like:

Extrude — shape extruding in any isometric direction (top/bottom, diagonal left, diagonal right, etc.)

Moving objects in isometry space (sometimes it can be frustrating to move object exactly in the isometric diagonal)

New visual interface, that will be more pleasant

Custom isometry angle





Download Requires Adobe Photoshop CS5, CS6

For installing you’ll need just double click on downloaded file, it should be opened in Adobe Extension Manager and take care of everything.

If you have issues about “Unknown Extension Signature” try installing this fix

After installing you’ll need to restart your Photoshop, new panel can be found in Window → Extensions → Isometrify

Feedback

Making this panel was fun, hope you’ll have some while using it too. If you have some feature requests or suggestions, please feel free to leave it in comments or send them to me to email/twitter. Enjoy!