topic Re: External Drawing in 'Layout' doesn't have transparency in Documentation

External Drawing in 'Layout' doesn't have transparency

Anonymous — Fri, 26 May 2023 00:30:19 GMT

So I've placed an external drawing in one on my layouts (3D image from ArchiCAD, TIFF file) and I've checked the "Transparent background" on the drawing settings but the background still have a colour. The colour also printed out... any ideas?

Thank You

Screenshot

Re: External Drawing in 'Layout' doesn't have transparency

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:37:50 GMT

I believe ArchiCAD looks for pure white pixels and makes them transparent. I guess if the background isn't white, then that option doesn't work.

Be aware when using the 'transparent background' feature for images I've always found the result fairly crude. For some reason it also significantly increases the size of any pdfs produced from that layout too.

I'd use photoshop and edit the original tiff file to manually replace the background colour with white, then just leave the background on in the layout.

Re: External Drawing in 'Layout' doesn't have transparency

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:43:14 GMT

Peter wrote:
I believe ArchiCAD looks for pure white pixels and makes them transparent. I guess if the background isn't white, then that option doesn't work.

Be aware when using the 'transparent background' feature for images I've always found the result fairly crude. For some reason it also significantly increases the size of any pdfs produced from that layout too.

I'd use photoshop and edit the original tiff file to manually replace the background colour with white, then just leave the background on in the layout.

So that's why the quality of the image is slightly less with transparent on then...

Yep, I've now edited the image in Ps as you suggested.

Thank You

Re: External Drawing in 'Layout' doesn't have transparency

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:55:27 GMT

Another option that might help is to actually edit the boundary of the drawing and crop it so only the parts of the image you want are displayed.

You will be limited to arcs and straight lines if you use the options from the pet palette, but you can draw around any freeform shapes using the spline tool beforehand, and then use the 'subtract from polygon' pet palette option combined with the magic wand to remove the bits of the image outside the spline.

This technique might be especially useful if you want to overlap several images or plans on a layout, as it would give a nice crisp edge around each one.

Hope that helps!