Raster Image Size

John Kennedy
John Kennedy
in Other

Is there a maximum number of pixels that BCAD will support when inserting raster images?  We are working with some very large aerial photographs and I can only get a bounding box to show up.These images are 300 dpi and are 20,523 x 14,509 pixels.  I can insert a smaller image and it works fine.  I also have had problems printing images over 10,000 pixels.  The image will show up on the sceen and in a print preview, but will not print (either to a file OR to a plotter).  I know the "simple" answer is make the image smaller, but that really is not acceptable for the type of work we do.  I would also add, that if this could be solved with a plugin/addon app it would be worth it to purchase.  Any insight would be welcome.

Comments

  • Gerrit Kiers
    Gerrit Kiers

    I don't have the hardware available to check this, I assume you use ECW as file format?

  • John Kennedy
    John Kennedy

    No, I use jpg, tif and png files.  The format doesn't seem to matter.  When the file gets too big (in pixels) it will not print.  And with the very large file, won't even show up.

    I would also add that this is not an issue with my printer (as I have read at other forums).  I can take a 12,600 x 9,000 px jpeg (that will not print in BCAD or ACAD) and insert the image into a VectorWorks file, and it will print without any problems.

  • Gerrit Kiers
    Gerrit Kiers

    The ECW format is a different category altogether. It is optimized for aerial and satellite imagery. I have used tif and jpg and with these the memory requirements of BCAD seem linear related to the uncompressed size of these images. ECW files are handled very different and the same images require only a fraction of memory.

    I don’t know if it is a memory issue, but I recommend you convert some of your images to ECW and see for yourself if this helps you on screen en printing. I would expect so.

  • John Kennedy
    John Kennedy

    I will look into this.  But, can you insert an ECW file into BricsCAD?

  • Daniel Eiszele
    Daniel Eiszele

    It's in the list of supported formats.

  • John Kennedy
    John Kennedy

    I did try inserting a large image into a file using the ecw format.  To my surprise it actually was visable.  I also was able to plot a 30 x 42 sheet to our Canon plotter and everything looked fine!

    I then tried plotting to a pdf and a jpeg.  I was not able to get the sheet to plot.  It would spool, then I would get an error message in the command line:  "Error rendering object 96A78. Unknown error".  I tried the same this thing but inserting a jpeg2000 file, same results.  After playing with it for a while, I was able to get the jpeg2000 sheet to print to a PDF when the geo-refernceing option was unchecked.  So we are moving in the right direction.  For our purposes this will work and I can make a deadline.   I was wondering if others had issues using geo-referencing. 

    One other question about the jpeg2000 format.  I see it is suposed to support transparency (which would be great).  However, in test with some small files, I cannot get the trasparency to work (as it does with png's for instance). 

    Thanks to everyone for your help.  This is why BCAD is the best.

  • Mack McKenzie
    Mack McKenzie

    I was having the same problem with renderings I have done.  I see that there maybe a solution with the ECW format.  This will show my lack of knowledge to this world, but what is ECW and how do I convert my jpegs to this format so I can met my deadline?

    Thanks

  • Daniel Eiszele
    Daniel Eiszele

    ECW = Enhanced Compression Wavelet - Just google it for more info.  Try www.irfanview.com for software that can convert all your image files to ECW format.  It is free for non commercial use but I'm sure the licensing cost is quite reasonable for production work.

  • Arno Van Eeuwen
    Arno Van Eeuwen

    We have filed a support request for this a while ago and are aware Bricsys is working on it.

    For plotting we use a work around for the time being: open the drawing in DWG True View  and plot it from there.

     

     

  • William Blackledge
    William Blackledge

    Hi, I have the same issue. Latest Bricscad Pro, created a Site plan with aerial and other photos added, and get the following message on printing:

    An error occurred while rendering entity 61035: Out of memory

    If I open the same file with AutoCAD LT2008, it prints without a problem.

    Another workaround is to Export to PDF (having set the page dimensions correctly in File>PDF Export options), which gives no error.  This makes a large, uncompressed PDF, from which you can print.  Alternatively, print the PDF to (free) PDF Creator and you can set higher levels of compression/lower resolution to get a smaller final PDF.

    Despite the work-arounds, this bug really needs to be sorted.

  • Daniel Fawcett
    Daniel Fawcett
     I know it's an old thread but I'm having a similar issue when working with .ecw files. The file causing trouble is an aerial photograph and every time I try to raster it in Bricscad it doesn't load the geoinformation so it inserts at (0,0,0). Secondly it doesn't show the image, but rather a box the size of the image with text in the middle listing the address of where the image is stored. 

    Couple other points to note is that the image is stored on my computers harddrive and it's a new Bricscad file (so don't think it's an image reference issue). This is not the only .ecw file that has presented the issue and the file definitely has coordinate information as when I open it in something like ER Viewer or IRFAN Viewer I can see the coordinates.

    Anyone else encountered this problem before and found a solution? Attached are screens of what I'm getting.


    imageraster 1.jpg
    imageraster 2.jpg
  • Daniel Fawcett
    Daniel Fawcett
    UPDATE: I have managed to get the raster image to load in Bricscad now by reducing the .ecw file size (was 800Mb, fairly sure I've had larger .ecw images raster successfully in the past), however it is still not rastering on to the correct coordinates.

     I know it's an old thread but I'm having a similar issue when working with .ecw files. The file causing trouble is an aerial photograph and every time I try to raster it in Bricscad it doesn't load the geoinformation so it inserts at (0,0,0). Secondly it doesn't show the image, but rather a box the size of the image with text in the middle listing the address of where the image is stored. 

    Couple other points to note is that the image is stored on my computers harddrive and it's a new Bricscad file (so don't think it's an image reference issue). This is not the only .ecw file that has presented the issue and the file definitely has coordinate information as when I open it in something like ER Viewer or IRFAN Viewer I can see the coordinates.

    Anyone else encountered this problem before and found a solution? Attached are screens of what I'm getting.




This discussion has been closed.