You can import pictures and PDFs in Chief and edit them to fit your needs.
In this video, we're going to go over a few controls for cropping and sizing,
your pictures and PDFs, and some other settings you should be aware of.
In the top left-hand corner of my screen,
I've got a picture on my computer desktop.
I can bring it in to Chief by going to file import,
import picture or by dragging and dropping it from the computer
desktop in Chief.
When I select the picture,
notice that I have handles come up around the corners sides and top and bottom
of the image. The handles on the bottom top,
and either side can be used to crop this picture.
I've got a lot of extra white space on either side of the image.
So I'm going to use the handles on either side to crop the image down so that
only the necessary information is present. Additionally,
you can use the handles in the corner to resize the image
and you can use the triangle handle that you see to rotate the image.
Additionally,
with my picture selected notice in the bottom toolbar that I have many of the
same other editing tools seen throughout other areas of the program.
These tools can be a great way to move copy and resize the picture.
In this picture of a floor plan,
I want to simply trace over it with my architectural tools to recreate the plan
as a 3d model. Before doing that,
you need to ensure that the picture and Chief are working at the same one-to-one
ratio. To ensure the picture in Chief are at the same ratio,
you can use the point to point resize tool and resize the picture based on one
of the known dimensions. When doing this,
try to use a larger dimension to increase your accuracy.
With the picture selected,
I'm going to select my point to point resize tool and zoom into my picture
and come to the left-hand side of my dimension up here at reads 58 feet,
and then come over and click once and then move to the right hand side and come
to the other end and then just click when I'm on the other dimension.
And when I do that, a box comes up that asks,
how long do you want the distance between those two points to be?
I'm going to type in 58 feet.
And then you'll also notice that there's a check box here.
It says retain aspect ratio.
You usually want to leave this checked to ensure Chief evenly resizes the
picture and both the vertical and horizontal axis.
If you uncheck this Chief will resize this picture on only one of the axis
and the picture may appear distorted. I'm going to click on, okay.
And now that I have that image resized,
I can go up to our wall tool and then come over to the image and
then just trace over the wall. Now notice that I don't have it exactly over.
A tip that I like to use is to get it close and then use the arrows on the
keyboard to nudge into place.
I'm going to go back to using my straight exterior wall tool and then just go
around and trace over the design.
Once I've enclosed the space,
the program will put automatic dimensions going around the outside and you can
select these walls and then use the arrows on the keyboard to nudge them into
space and ensure that the dimensions match those in the image.
You will then take a similar approach with your windows and doors seen in the
image by selecting the appropriate architectural tool,
and then just placing it over the top of the image,
resizing it and moving it into position from there.
You can also include pictures and PDFs in your layout sheets.
Here I am in the layout and on the right hand side,
I've got a title block and I've got a space for my company logo.
I want this logo to be on every page in the layout sheet.
So I'm going to go to page zero so that when I add it,
the logo will be present on every page.
I'm going to drag and drop the logo from my desktop into the layout,
and then using the same handles we talked about earlier, I'm going to resize it,
rotate it, and then just move it into position.
And one keyboard stroke you might use to help move.
It is by holding the control key while you move it.
If I double click on the picture, you will open up its specification.
Here you can see the file name and browse to
change the image or relink it, if it has gone missing.
Let's take a look at this.
So I'm going to cancel out of my specification and then I'm going to save my
layout and then close out of Chief altogether.
Then on my computer,
I'm going to move the image from its current location on the desktop,
into a folder I've made. I'm going to relaunch Chief,
and I'm going to reopen this layout file that we were just working on.
And when we do that,
we get a message saying that there's an missing file in this layout.
And you can see that the company logo image is not present.
You can choose to either delete that image altogether, replace it.
Or you can close out of this box. I'm going to close out of this box.
And if you click in the spot where that logo was present,
you can see that we still select an item. And if I double click on it,
you can see that we get a warning message indicating that it can't find that
picture and its current location. So from here,
I'm just going to click on browse and then I'm going to click on my folder and
open it up, select the image and then just click on open.
And when we click on, okay,
you can see that that image is now present again in my layout file.
Let's open up This picture of specification again and take a look at a few other
settings. So I'm going to double click on it. And underneath the file name,
there's a checkbox that says, save in plan. If you check this,
the picture will be embedded in the plan or layout file and can it help avoid
issues with missing file messages, such as the example we just went through,
or if you were to send a plan or layout file to a different computer.
Next you can select whether you want the picture to be a PNG or a JPEG file type
PNG's allows for transparency,
which is great for logos since often they have transparent areas.
PNGs are also better for pictures of line drawings,
text or large areas of a single color.
JPEGs allow for a smaller file size and is better if you are importing
photos of the real world. If you select the JPEG option,
a field is available where you can specify the quality,
a lower value results in better compression,
whereas a higher value results in better quality.
A variety of options are available under display option checking black and
white dither creates a two-tone effect that may produce better results.
When printed.
If we open that up again and uncheck that and check gray
scale,
it will produce a similar effect by replacing the color with shades of gray.
If we open that back up and unchecked gray scale and check on
reflect, Chief will reverse the image.
Let's open the image backup and uncheck that.
And then the last two options are basic photo editing controls to specify the
brightness and contrast.
Now that I have that image on my layout sheet, how I wanted to,
if I knew that I want to use this layout in every plan going forward,
I would save it as a template.
The first thing I would probably do would be to make sure I'm always starting at
my page one and then go to file templates,
save as template.
And then you can specify what sort of information you want to delete or keep in
your template and I'm going to click on, okay.
And then next you can specify where you want to save that layout template.
And I'm going to just going to save it in this folder that we've been working
with.
And then you will probably want to give it a unique name and then click on save.
And then the last thing you want to adjust with this is if you know,
you wanted to use this layout template for every layout going forward.
If you go to edit and down to preferences, and if you're working on the Mac,
go on Chief Architect in the top left corner and go down to preferences.
And then under new plans, you'll see this option for layout template.
And if you want that layout file,
we just and Saved to be your default file each time you start a new
layout,
you will want to click browse and then select on your computer where you just
saved that layout template file.
And by doing that every time we go to file new layout,
the new layout will automatically be based on that file.
Importing PDFs work similar to importing pictures. However,
there are some important things to be aware of.
If you're going to be importing a PDF that contains scaling or dimensioning
info such as a site plan or a CAD detail,
it may be wiser to import it into the plan file, resize it,
and then send it to your layout at the appropriate scale.
Let's take a look at this. For the purpose of this example.
I have a completed PDF file on my computer and I'm just going to drag and drop
it into Chief. Next,
the import PDF menu pops up where you can see all of the pages in the
PDF.
You can select that you want to import the current page,
a range of pages or all pages.
I'm going to switch our page number to page two and then click on okay.
And you can see how this page of the PDF imported.
And if I double click on it to open up its specification,
you can change the page number by typing in a new value here.
And then you'll want to check the save in plan option.
I'm going to click on okay. And for this example,
I only care about this area of the PDF.
So I'm going to crop out all of the unnecessary information,
just like we did earlier with our picture files, by selecting it,
and then using the handles on the side to crop out any unnecessary info.
The next step is resizing it,
and we're going to resize it using that same point to point move tool that we
used earlier by selecting the PDF,
selecting the point to point move tool,
and then selecting the first point on the PDF and then selecting the second
point and then typing in the value between the two points.
And you can see that that is 182 feet. So I'm going to click on, okay.
And now we have that PDF file resized so that when this view is sent to the
layout, it is accurately at the desired scale.
A final note on importing PDF files,
PDF files can sometimes contain a lot of data.
So if you import multiple PDF files into your plan or layouts
under certain conditions, you may see the program slow down. To avoid this,
try to use PDF files only when necessary,
try to ensure that PDF file only contains the necessary information and try
to minimize the PDF file size as much as possible before bringing
it into Chief.