Inserting Raster Images


 Product(s):Promis.e, Bentley Substation
 Version(s):08.11.05.xx - 08.11.13.96
 Environment:N/A
 Area:PowerPlatform Support
 Subarea:N/A

Background

This document describes a simple method for inserting a raster image such as a logo into drawings such as title blocks and project pages in Promis.e and Bentley Substation. Raster images are often called bitmaps, and may have file extensions of .bmp, .jpg, .gif, .png, .tiff, and others.

Steps to Accomplish

For Promis.e Standalone and Bentley Substation

  1. Open the destination drawing. Project pages can be opened using [[Project Manager]]. Title blocks can be created and modified with the [[Title Block Designer]].

  2. Open Windows Explorer and browse to the image file.

  3. Right click the image file and select Open With > Paint.

  4. In the Paint application, select Edit > Select All, or press CTRL+A.

  5. Select Edit > Copy or press CTRL+C to copy the image to the clipboard.

  6. Switch back to the Bentley software.

  7. Select Edit > Paste from the pull down menus, or press CTRL+V.  A Paste OLE Object box should appear.  See the consideration note below. 

  8. Set the Method setting to "By Corners", and then click to define the position and size of the image. If the box is not sizing smoothly, it may be snapping to grid points. Grid Lock can be disabled using the Grid Lock button on the Tools > Tool Boxes > Locks tool box.


A consideration: First paste the image with the Method setting set to "By Size" and Scale set to 1.000 on the Paste OLE Object box.  If the pasted image appears significantly larger than necessary, consider reducing the size of the image with image editing software to reduce the size of the image file, and then start the above steps once again.  Because it could be used on many or all pages of a project, keeping the file size of the title block small will reduce the overall disk space required by the project, and may reduce the time it takes to open the pages.

Note: Type 87 raster images are not supported by AutoCAD at the time of this writing. This means that Promis.e Standalone drawings that contain the raster images will display correctly but when exported to .dwg, the .dwg files will be missing the images. To avoid this, be sure to use the Microsoft Paint application in the above procedure, which will insert the raster as an OLE object.  Using Paint.NET (not to be confused with Microsoft Paint) or perhaps other applications in the procedure will result in type 87 raster images being inserted. Using other graphics applications may insert the raster as a true raster which, again, is unsupported by AutoCAD. To determine if inserted images are type 87 raster images, use the analyze element key-in and select the image.

For promis.e for AutoCAD

  1. Open the destination drawing. Project pages can be opened using [[Project Manager]]. Title blocks can be created and modified with the [[Title Block Designer]].

  2. Open Windows Explorer and browse to the image file.

  3. Right click the image file and select Open With > Paint.

  4. In the Paint application, select Edit > Select All, or press CTRL+A.

  5. Select Edit > Copy or press CTRL+C to copy the image to the clipboard.

  6. Switch back to promis.e.

  7. Use Paste Special (type PASTESPEC at the Command prompt).

  8. Choose the "Image Entity" option on the Paste Special dialog, click OK. 

  9. Click on the drawing area to specify the insertion point and scale factor of the raster.

A consideration: First paste the image with a scale factor of 1 (watch the command line for the prompt). If the pasted image appears significantly larger than necessary, consider reducing the size of the image with image editing software to reduce the size of the image file, and then start the above steps once again. Because it could be used on many or all pages of a project, keeping the file size of the title block small will reduce the overall disk space required by the project, and may reduce the time it takes to open the pages.

Note: When used on title blocks, raster images inserted by methods other than Paste Special > Image Entity have been found not to maintain scale and position when the scale factor of the project page is not "1".

See Also

[[3599|Platform Fundamentals for Promis.e Standalone Users]]

 Original Author:Matt_P & JohnS