We value your input! Please participate in Archicad 28 Home Screen and Tooltips/Quick Tutorials survey
on 2011-11-21 11:02 PM - edited on 2023-01-04 03:43 AM by Giovana Benvenuto
Drawing Tool |
Figure Tool |
|
What it inserts | Archicad views (internal or external), external drawings (DWG, DXF, DWF, DGN, PDF, HPGL, PMK, PLT, EMF, WMF, images, etc.) Optionally, inserts a drawing title on Layouts only. | A subset of those things that the Drawing Tool can insert: photo/image files on Windows and Mac. On macOS X only, the Figure Tool can also place PDF (converted automatically to the bitmapped image by the tool) |
The practical advantage over other tools? | Tool of choice in general | Can distort the image in x or y dimension if required to make image scale more accurately (although scaling is completely visual. macOS X can only display (auto-converted) PDF with transparent background. |
Where it inserts | Archicad views can only be inserted onto a Layout; other drawings can be inserted into any model view or Layout | Any model view or Layout |
How it inserts | Choice of a live link, or embedded copy | An embedded copy |
Insertion via Tool | Click in model view or layout and the dialog appears to select the source | Open the button in the Figure Tool Settings dialog |
Insertion via command | File > External Content > Place External Drawing | n/a |
Drag and Drop in Layout | Default settings of Drawing Tool provide initial drawing settings and title for all non-image files | Any image-format file (jpeg, png, etc) will drop as a Figure |
Drag and Drop in the plan, section, etc. (model views) | Default settings of Drawing Tool provide initial drawing settings for all non-image files (but, no title) | The default settings of Figure Tool provide initial image settings |
PDF Insertion | Can choose which page of a multi-page PDF to insert | Only macOS X supports PDF insertion with the Figure Tool: only the first page of a multi-page PDF is inserted |
Cropping | Can crop drawing/image to a polygon. (Actually creating a polygonal cropping viewport in which the drawing can be panned.) | n/a |
Frame / Border | Optional drawing/image frame (border) with selected line style and pen around cropping polygon | n/a |
Scalability | Drawings are scalable vectors if from a scalable source (vector PDF, dwg, Archicad view, etc) | Anything inserted is a non-scalable bitmap – if the image is enlarged, you will see pixelation |
Scaling | Proportional scaling only. Note that for Archicad views, scaling should not typically be done with the tool, but by creating an appropriately scaled view | Proportional scaling only if the shift key is held; otherwise, images may be distorted in either the X or Y axis |
Mirroring | n/a | Tool option |
Background transparency | Not available for PDF. Checkbox to enable transparency for images and drawings. | Yes |
Info on actual pixels in the image available in Tool? | No | Yes |
Can you save content in different formats? | No | Yes |
Can change the color of the content? | Yes | No |
Scheduling | Content placed with the Drawing Tool is all itemized in the Drawing Manager. Only content placed on Layouts is listed in a drawing-based Project Index schedule though. | Images placed with the Figure Tool do not appear in any schedule. |