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pictures
A sheet can carry pictures alongside the drawing: a photo of the cabinet, a supplier's logo, a screenshot of an HMI page. QElectroTech copies the picture into the project file, so the project stays complete when it is moved or sent on; nothing points back to the file you picked.
This page covers inserting a picture, the handles, the properties panel, the picture's own right-click menu, and what it costs in the saved file.
- Click Ajouter une image (Add a picture) on the Ajouter (Add) toolbar. The same command is in Édition ▸ Ajouter (Edit ▸ Add) and in the Ajouter submenu of the sheet's right-click menu.
- Pick a file: PNG, JPEG, BMP or SVG.
- Click on the sheet where the picture should go.
A picture is an ordinary sheet item: it moves, copies, pastes, snaps to the sheet grid and undoes like everything else.
A selected picture shows handles, in one of two modes. Click the selected picture to switch between them; the tooltip names the mode the next click gives.
| Mode | Drag | Modifier |
|---|---|---|
| Resize | a corner or an edge | Shift keeps the proportions, Ctrl resizes from the centre |
| Rotate / skew | a corner to rotate, an edge to skew | Shift snaps to 15° steps |
| Rotate / skew | the red dot | moves the centre of rotation |
While the pointer is over a selected picture, the status bar lists the same gestures for the current mode.
Select a picture and the Propriétés de la sélection (Selection properties) panel shows:
| Field | Does |
|---|---|
| Largeur / Hauteur (Width / Height) | size as a percentage of the source image. The lock between them keeps the proportions; click it to size each on its own |
| Restaurer les proportions | makes the height percentage match the width again, undoing a stretch |
| Angle | rotation, in degrees |
| Inclinaison X / Inclinaison Y (Skew X / Y) | skew, in degrees |
| Libellé (Label) | a caption under the picture — see below |
| Verrouiller la position (Lock position) | stops the picture from being moved |
Text typed in Libellé is drawn centred under the picture. It belongs to the picture: it moves, copies, rotates and prints with it, and clicking the label selects the picture. It stays at normal sheet text size however large or small the picture is scaled, using the font set for sheet texts in the preferences. Leave the field empty to remove the label.
Before the label existed, the only way to caption a picture was a separate free text, which had to be selected together with the picture every time either was moved.
There is no per-label font, colour or position.
Right-click a picture for its own commands, above the usual sheet ones:
| Command | Does |
|---|---|
| Remplacer l'image… (Replace picture) | swaps in another file, keeping position, scale and rotation; any crop or transparent colours are cleared |
| Enregistrer l'image sous… (Save picture as) | writes the picture as it looks on the sheet, crop and transparency applied, to PNG, JPEG, BMP or SVG |
| Enregistrer l'image d'origine sous… (Save original picture as) | writes the picture as it was inserted, before any crop or transparency |
| Couleur transparente… (Transparent colour) | picks one or more colours to make see-through, each with a tolerance — for a logo on a white background, say |
| Rogner… (Crop) | keeps only a rectangle of the picture |
| Miroir horizontal / Miroir vertical | flips the picture |
| Restaurer les proportions | as in the properties panel |
Crop and transparency do not destroy the original: it stays in the project, so either can be changed again later, and Enregistrer l'image d'origine sous… gets it back. JPEG and BMP cannot hold transparency; QElectroTech warns before saving a see-through picture to one of them.
Each picture is an <image> element in its sheet's <images> block (see
Project XML):
| Part | Holds |
|---|---|
| text content | the picture as displayed, PNG, base64-encoded |
x, y, z
|
position and stacking order |
rotation, size
|
angle and scale, as older versions read them |
is_movable |
0 when the position is locked |
uuid |
the picture's permanent id |
label |
the label, only when one is set |
<transform> |
separate X/Y scale, skew and rotation centre, only when needed |
<crop>, <transparent_colors>
|
the crop rectangle and keyed colours, only when used |
<image_base> |
the untouched original, only when the picture is cropped or keyed |
Things that follow from this:
- Pictures are always stored as PNG. A JPEG photo becomes a PNG inside the project, which is often several times larger than the JPEG was. Scale a large photo down before inserting it if file size matters.
- A cropped or keyed picture is stored twice, displayed and original.
- Older versions open these projects. They read the picture, position, rotation and scale, and ignore the label, the uuid and the rest; saving from an older version drops them.
- Saving is quick even with many pictures. Each picture's PNG is encoded once and reused on every later save until the picture changes.
A picture also appears in the project database's image table and in
drawing_item_view — see The project database.
| Limitation | Detail |
|---|---|
| DXF export | pictures become outline boxes: see DXF import & export |
| Label styling | the label uses the sheet text font; no per-label font, colour or position |
| No link to the source file | changing the file on disk does not update the project; use Remplacer l'image… |
- Mouse modifiers — Shift, Ctrl and Alt while dragging
- Aligning items — putting pictures back on the grid
- Grouping items — keeping a picture with the symbols or texts it belongs to
- Showing and hiding kinds of items — hiding every picture for a while (Affichage ▸ Afficher ▸ Images)
- Printing and exporting — what reaches paper and PDF
-
The project database — the
imagetable
