Good morning TBC’ers! Have you ever georeferenced an aerial image and wanted to save the contents of your Plan View to view your georeferenced image in an external viewer? Or have you wanted to export the aerial image in a format that can be loaded into Google Earth for presentation purposes? Well, today I will be demonstrating the Capture Image command. The Capture Image command saves the contents of the active Plan View as both a georeferenced image (in a .jpg, .png, .tif, or .gif format) and a placemark KML file (.kml) that can be viewed in Google Earth. You can capture all of the content displayed in the Plan View, or you can use a plotbox to select content you want to capture.
Note: A georeferenced image file is actually made up of two files: the image file itself and the world file (.tfw) accompanying it that contains the georeferencing data.
To access the Capture Image command, follow these steps:
1. Navigate to the CAD Ribbon, and select Capture under Images:
2. With the Capture Image command pane open, define the name, file extension format, and location of where the georeferenced image and KML file will be stored on your computer.
Note: The PNG (.png) and TIFF (.tif) file formats produce transparent KML images when viewed in Google Earth. The JPEG (.jpg) and GIF (.gif) formats create an opaque (non-transparent) KML images when viewed in Google Earth. Note that white objects (i.e. lines, points, point names, and features) can be more difficult to view in a transparent image.
3. Optionally, in the Resolution drop-down list, select the resolution at which the image in the Plan View will be captured.
If you are capturing the contents of the entire Plan View, the resulting image's resolution is the size of the Plan View (excluding the frame) multiplied by the DPI value you select in the Resolution drop-down list. If you are capturing the contents of a plotbox, the resulting image's resolution is the size of the plotbox multiplied by the DPI value you select in the Resolution drop-down list. If you reduce the size of the Plan View or plotbox prior to capturing the image, the file will be smaller in size and lower in resolution. Conversely, if you increase the size of the Plan View or plotbox, the resulting image will be larger in size and higher in resolution. Consider how, and on what device, the resulting image will be displayed when choosing a capture area and resolution.
4. Optionally, to capture the contents of plotbox rather than the entire Plan View, do the following:
A. Click the Create Plotbox button located at the top of the Capture Image pane to display the Create Plotbox pane:
B. After you create your plotbox, select the plotbox you want to use in the Select plotbox (optional) drop-down list.
5. Click Apply. The newly captured image file name is added to the Image list:
You can do any of the following in the image list:
- Hover your cursor over the file name to display the full path to the file’s location
- Click the file name to view the image in an external viewer
- Right click the file name and select Delete to delete the image file and its related world file and KML file from the project
- Double click the row header button for any file in the list to open the folder in which the image file, world file, and KML file are stored
You now have three new files stored in your computer that can be used to share or visualize your data in a different viewer:
I hope this tip comes in handy next time you are working with georeferenced images in TBC!