How To Use An Image As a Tracing Template?

[Stage5]

Hi Everyone,

 

This is my first post. I've been a professional Graphic Designer for a sign company for the past 20 years. I also do a lot of mechanical 3d work. I'm new to this app though and have little experience in Architecture.

 

My wife and I bought a new house last year and we have a lot of different projects we have planned. We're mainly starting with exterior landscaping. The biggest issue right now is for me is getting the terrain height into the software. We have a heavily sloped backyard. I've collected a bunch of different data from my county's government website. So I've been able to get a 10' contour map that should give me the general height of my terrain and an aerial satellite image that has the property boundaries / general tree locations.

 

I watched the tutorial videos on setting up terrain height, and I don't see any mention of if it's possible to use an image to trace on top of? Most of the graphics software I'm used to using allows a semi-transparent template image to be used. For now I will just model the outside walls of the house and eventually will finish modeling the inside walls and other details. I tried searching the help documents, but I don't see anything about using an image as a drawing / modeling template. So any help regarding this would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[Stage5]

Thanks, I'll create a signature now.

 

I did search through the help documents, but I can't find anything that tells me how (or even if) I can place an image on the plan view grid. Although I may be using the wrong search term. I've used the term "Image" and have read every result that pops up. 

[solver]

Did you search tracing?

 

Do you see how to import an image?

[Stage5]

I appreciate the quick replies. And sorry for originally posting in the wrong forum section. 

 

I did not search for tracing. I will do that now. I knew it probably would be a key word search issue though. I use a lot of different graphics software and they all use different terms for similar functions (Adobe, C4d, Modo, etc.)

 

Thanks

 

Edit:

Hmmmm. There are no results in the search for the word tracing.

[Stage5]

Ok, I think I figured it out. So I can drag an image from the desktop straight into the viewport. Not sure if I can lock that image or dim it? Is there an Object Browser for this app? I only see a Library palette on the right. 

[DavidJPotter]

DJP

[Stage5]

Thank you sir!

 

I'll have a look. 

[Stage5]

Perfect! That video also helped me with another question I would have had about scaling the image. I think I'm now in a position to build the terrain height and rough out the other elements. Thanks again.

 

 

[Robborito]

Stage5 - I'll offer my experience on exactly the same issue;

There are various free transparency tools on line that an image can be modified with prior to using into HDPro?

Photoshop has an opacity adjustment.

As I am on a Mac I have used a PNG image transparency tool EG which works well.,

https://onlinepngtools.com/create-transparent-png

When I have traced walls of a sketch plan - I just keep all visible by moving them to the display front for clarity.

Its quite workable for my uses.

 

 

[Stage5]

Thanks for the tip Robborito. I do have Photoshop and use it most days. So that will allow me to create images with transparency. Cheers!

 

Simon