Extended File Types for Inventor 2013 Borders

Inventor 2013 gives you the ability to Insert image types BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG and TIF into a title block on a Drawing border. Previous versions of Inventor only allowed BMP or JPG!

To insert an image into a Drawing Title Block, edit the Title Block definition, and click Sketch TAB > Insert panel > Image. Click in the graphic window to place the image, then in the Open dialogue, select an image file, and click Open.

 

Note: By default the Open dialogue will Link to the selected image, not always desirable on a Drawing border. To Embed the image, simply unitck the Link box shown above.

Free Online Image Editing and Sharing Tools from Autodesk

Pixlr products are free online and mobile image editing tools and utilities for creating, editing, and sharing images. From full-featured image editors for people who want to quickly create a custom image for a website or Blog, to fun apps that apply retro filters to your photos, to simple utilities for fetching and sharing images, Pixlr provides a variety of tools that start up fast and are simple to use:

• Pixlr Editor - A free, online, full-featured image editing and creation tool.
• Pixlr Express - A simple and immediate online tool for quick image adjustments.
• Pixlr Grabber - Fetch images and screen grabs from your desktop and browser.
• imm.io - An image sharing service that allows you to upload an image and share it with friends via a link in just one click or with social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and more.
• Pixlr-o-matic - A fun and playful post-process darkroom where you can experiment with different effects, overlays, and borders. Get Pixlr-o-matic on the web or from the Apple iTunes Store.

Showcase Decals with Image Colour Information

We have come across this situation a few times on support, where people have placed a Decal onto a face in Showcase. Then changed the properties of the Decal to use an image of their choosing, i.e. Company Logo or Picture. However the colours do not come through from the image file, it appears to be overridden in Showcase.

•  The first step is to place your Decal on to the Face of your part. This is when you might notice that it is not displaying correctly.

How to Cleanup Background Colour from Logo Images

In Showcase it is quite common place to want to place a Logo or Image onto your design as a Decal. These images can come from various sources, including the Internet.

If you have access to the image in question, it might be in a BMP or JPG format with a coloured background surrounding the logo itself. Not such a good look when you are trying to make your design look as real as possible.

Again, there are lots of ways to remove this, some easier than others. However, I prefer to turn these types of files into PNG files, which can carry a transparent background.

If you have one of the new Product Design Suites, then you already have a tool to help, SketchBook Designer. The following steps, take a JPG file, remove the background colour and export to PNG, take a look yourself.

• Start by opening SketchBook Designer, then go to File > Open > find your Logo or Image.

• The image file will appear on a Paint layer in SketchBook Designer, use the Wand tool, then click inside the coloured background area. This area will highlight with a dashed outline to tell you what is selected.

Autodesk 123D Catch Released

Turn ordinary photos into extraordinary 3D models with Autodesk 123D Catch. Take photos of your favorite people, places and things and let the power of the cloud magically transform them into detailed 3D models.

123D Catch is free beta software. Try it out and share your projects with us in our gallery.

How it works:

• Snap - Take multiple digital photos of stationary people, places or things with any standard digital point-and-shoot camera.
• Submit - Powerful photo stitching technology operates in the cloud, generating high-quality 3D models. Add or remove photos to adjust the results.
• Share - Save your project as a movie and share it via email or post it to YouTube. Export the model to .obj or .dwg to use it in other 3D tools.

Visit the 123D Catch website to find out more, or download to try for yourself.

Remove Lost Image References in Borders

From time to time we come across an issue with Drawing Templates, where users are perhaps replacing an old company Logo, or adding additional Logos, or borders with other Logos. This can lead to a build up of Images in the Template, some of which do not appear visually on the drawing, as if a reference is stuck in the Template somehow.

This in turn leads to issues checking files into Vault, with unexplainable references to Images outside the Project location or locations where they no longer exist. On the whole this occurs more often when the Image/Logo has been Linked into the file rather than Embedded.

Autodesk Two Minute Tip - Insert Sketch Image

Autodesk Technical Evangelist Rob Cohee answers some viewer mail. Several of you have asked about inserting an image into a sketch so that you can trace over it. In this example, Rob demonstrates how to insert, orient, and modify the image so that it can be used as an underlay for sketching.