Good afternoon,
I would like to know if it’s possible to increase the size of the background image to match a measurement ?
Thank you.
Anne
1 Like
Hello @bomadame,
Unfortunately, for the moment, it is not possible to use formulas in the image properties and there is no way to automatically link the sizes and positions of the images to items in the draft scene.
This is the very first version of the future, it will be progressively improved in the future 
For the moment you’ll have to resize the images manually using the handles or by entering the values in the properties dialog (accessible by right clicking the image).
2 Likes
Thank you so much for the answer.
2 Likes
Hey, @Onetchou @Douglas, I think this idea was actually mentioned years ago in a discussion regarding background images, but while the image function is primarily inspired by the desire to more easily copy patterns, I was just wondering if it would be reasonable at this time to have the option of having the picture pinned in relation to the window rather than in relation to the draft block. That way an inspiration picture / tech specs could be always on screen without pinning another program’s window in front of the screen, or some other perfectly reasonable, but possibly slightly inconvenient, method.
Oh, & minor bug report: at least in the linux install, when the “Open Image File” window is cancelled (button or X,) it gives a “Could not load the image.” error. I assume it’s a known minor issue, scheduled to be eliminated in due time, but having discovered it I thought I’d double check.
2 Likes
Do you mean like displaying it in a dock window instead of the displaying on the Draft mode scene - which you see through the main window view ?
Yeah… I think I may have propsed such an idea before… which would be completely seperate from importing images onto the scene. Actually programatically it would be faily easy to do. What would be really useful would be to be able to drag the dock(s) onto a second monitor… so you could have a reference materials dock (or all the docks for that matter) on another monitor, leaving the full use of the Main window view for drafting.
2 Likes
Thanks, I’ll correct that. Actually I noticed this not so long ago so you did well to bring it up as I could have missed it
2 Likes
I think @Pneumarian has more in mind a checkbox in the image properties dialog so that when it is checked the corresponding image is not affected by the scene zoom nor the pan, while still being in the scene. This way, the user can still draft on top of the image without interacting with it (if it is locked), it does not reduce the drafting space, and it is always visible at the same place on the screen no matter where the user is in the scene.
Having a separate dockable window is very close to opening separately the image in the default image software, that you could already put in a separate screen, I’m not sure of the interest of having such a feature
2 Likes
I’m wondering about the confusion such a feature could create if the users check the box by mistake… I’ve never seen such a thing in other softwares.
1 Like
Yes, I was thinking what @Onetchou said. But a… compromise I guess… might be to make it so that the Pattern Preferences could be open while drafting. Such a move would enable text & picture both without having to bash the two together in a graphics program first, & I assume require less effort to alter than adding a whole new sub-window.
However, this doesn’t allow for multiple pictures, such as a different inspo/spec for each block.
1 Like
To note: Uses have 2 reasons why they want to be able to load an image.
- To be able to trace over.
- To display instructions, tech sheets, images - negating having to have a book open.
Your feature satifies the 1st reason, but doesn’t really address the 2nd need.
If it’s in a dock, the dock could also contain text. Also docks can be detached and floated OR and placed off onto another monitor - thus leaving a larger work area (MainWindow->view()). This is a common setup for anyone doing serious graphics or video editing.
I moved the docks off onto my large flatscreen TV…
Laptop monitor:
TV:
1 Like
Stay tuned… 
4 Likes
Dialog is now non-modal… and it’s off on monitor 2.
BTW… if a dialog is displaying on monotor 2, and you minimize it… the miniized window will be displayed on the app’s window… in this case monitor 1. If expanded it returns to monitor 2.
4 Likes
Added sizegrips to the dialog and rearranged the layout to give more space to the image… Added tool buttons to handle the images. Placed the image in a Tab widget, and in the process of adding a second image. Named the Tabs Front and Back. - assuming user needs to show front and back of garment. Tabbing the images also means we can add more images in the future. Future improvement would be for option to save images as a reference filename instead of a bytearray - which really bloats a pattern file.
6 Likes
Well… why I’m at it fixing a bunch of other issues.
First I’m renaming the dialog to Pattern Properties… it’s really not Preferences. I’m thinking of renaming some of the Tabs. “Pattern” is redundant… collectively it’s the “Pattern Properties”… where the Pattern tab should be something like Style or Techical Info. Also the “Label Data” tab makes no sense… while yes the info in that tab is used in the labels, it’s really more pattern “General Info”. Also the label template editor link is not needed here - I previously added it where it belongs - in the Pattern Piece-> Labels.
Also I’m fixing the “show” image window. Currently it just opens a window the size of the image bitmap which can be huge. Also for some dumb reason it opens the window AT the cursor position???.. which means it’s likely to be off the screen:. Doh.
I’m playing around with placing the image within a scroll area in a dialog window that’s ON the screen… and have it adjust to resizing the dialog.
5 Likes