topic Re: Applying opacity to a jpeg in Modeling

Applying opacity to a jpeg

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 10:41:19 GMT

Is there any way you can you set a opacity to a jpeg in Archicad?

I am trying to create elevations for presentation, and need to add "realistic" trees in order to indicate context, but then the elevation itself starts getting lost, and I am very much trying to avoid having to take these elevations in to photoshop.

Re: Applying opacity to a jpeg

Laszlo Nagy — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 11:15:33 GMT

There is one place for JPG Transparency. When you place an image file with the Figure Tool, in its Settings Dialog you can check the Transparent checkbox. In this case all pixels in the image that are completely white will become transparent and you can see elements under or beyond them.
But this is a ON/OFF type of thing, so it will not work if you want something that sets opacity by a slider between 0 and 100%.

Re: Applying opacity to a jpeg

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 11:26:42 GMT

So I will have to export and take it to photoshop then.
Thank you for your help and quick response! Appreciate it.

Re: Applying opacity to a jpeg

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 05:25:47 GMT

my dream that archicad can do this one day ... version after version, and nothing ...

Re: Applying opacity to a jpeg

alemanda — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 06:00:47 GMT

Try to put a percentage fill over it playing with foreground color.

Re: Applying opacity to a jpeg

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 13:58:57 GMT

This does not give transparency , because I need to see what 's behind ... For example , a PNG tree on a elevation, need to see the building that have behind ... or a tree on a flor plan, need to see the road/paving that have behind...
Perhaps in ArchiCAD version 5000 will have this feature...

Thanks

Re: Applying opacity to a jpeg

alemanda — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 15:16:03 GMT

Sorry I misunderstood.

I think it's not possible to have in archicad the opacity you want to get ...

Re: Applying opacity to a jpeg

Bobby_ja_tt — Sat, 06 Aug 2016 16:35:22 GMT

have you tried importing your image onto a work sheet then displaying it as a reference and using the opacity option there?

Re: Applying opacity to a jpeg

Anonymous — Sat, 06 Aug 2016 19:56:21 GMT

This way works but the reference does not go to the layout book ... and I need some PNG trees have different opacities of others ..
Example in the attached images

Re: Applying opacity to a jpeg

Eduardo Rolon — Sat, 06 Aug 2016 22:34:39 GMT

First of all Archicad is geared for Construction Documents and its "presentation" capabilities will never be as great as using Photoshop or Illustrator etc. Anyway doing a little test using AC's trees and using the send to back command while turning on vectorial fills with transparent backgrounds gives me this. Different opacities is another different problem that might be solved by using custom pictures.

Re: Applying opacity to a jpeg

Eduardo Rolon — Sat, 06 Aug 2016 23:02:38 GMT

This is "faking" opacity by using the same image with different saturation settings.
Another problem can be that all of those images might start to slow down AC.

Re: Applying opacity to a jpeg

Erwin Edel — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 07:31:00 GMT

Given the almost lack of annotation in those examples, you might as well render the views and use photo-editing tool to place your trees and put those behind an elevation with only the annotation that is there.

The coloured vectorial elevations use such a limited palette / penset of colours, the trees would be the least of my worries. In my experience I can't even get near white surfaces to not be a shade of grey that is way too dark.

If you want a good way to scale the ortho rendered views in 3D: put some morph lines as a 'frame' on each elevation axis, you can select them in 3D and zoom to them to get a pixel perfect represenation of an excact measurement in your model.