Reports Imageport - Concepts

Imageports are static graphics windows that contain a graphic image, displayed on the current page. The following image types are directly available to Imageports:

• rendered images (Viewpoints)
• defined luminaire images from the Instabase
• Photometric Toolbox Professional images
• raytrace images
• daylight study images
• Browse for any other graphic image in JPG, BMP, PNG,or WMF format

Once the Imageport is created, it can be moved or resized as required. Imageports always retain their original aspect ratio, so that the image within is not skewed or distorted. When the Imageport is resized, it will use the shortest side to determine the aspect ratio. In addition, an Imageport's properties may be changed at any time by double clicking on the Imageport or right clicking on the Imageport, and selecting Properties from the secondary menu.

Selecting Images

Once an Imageport has been located, the Image contained within the Imageport may be changed at any time. The Imageport Properties dialog contains a Select Image button, which allows you to select an alternate image for the Imageport.

Once an image is loaded into an Imageport, it is stored in an internally compressed format. Bitmap or JPEGs format files are preferred over WMF (metafiles) files as metafiles tend to lose resolution in the compression storage process. Metafiles are converted to bitmaps before applying compression.

Copying and Pasting Imageports

An Imageport may be copied to the Windows Clipboard and then pasted into a new (additional) location.

Note: In order to use the Copy/Paste process, the page must be unlocked. (The Lock/Unlock buttons are in the Reports Toolkit.)

• Right-click on the Imageport to be copied.
• In the menu that appears, select Copy.
• Right-click in an available location (not where there is already an Imageport).
• Move the Imageport as needed by dragging it with your mouse.
• To resize it or change its contents, right-click on it and select Properties.

Pasting an Image from the Windows Clipboard

Any image copied to the Windows Clipboard may be inserted directly into an Imageport using the Edit-Paste Directly To Imageport (Ctrl+V) command. The Imageport is automatically sized to match the images dimensions and pasted at the upper left corner of the page.

Pasting Photometric Toolbox images

Luminaires must be defined and Photometric Toolbox (PTB) must be installed and registered in order to use this feature.

To select a graphic image from a PTB Tool to use in an Imageport, simply copy the graphic to the clipboard (the copy button in located lower right hand corner of each graphic), close PTB, the image will be automatically selected.

To select text from a PTB Tool, use the same procedure described above. Note: The Paste command only works for text pasted to the clipboard as Rich Text. In does NOT work for text pasted as tab delimited text (e.g. candela array). The selected text is transferred and converted to an image. The resultant image is resized to fit the selected text. By default, Imageports containing text are 'locked' (not resizable)  to prevent pixilation.

Text will most likely appear distorted when viewed in Reports, this is normal behavior. This pixilation is due to fact that the displayed image (and text within) is being displayed at a much smaller size than the actual size. This affect can be overcome by zooming in to actual size. When printed, the text should appear with the same quality as the original text with little or no pixilation.

Note: Report pages can be outputted to a printer or electronic file (e.g. Microsoft Document Image format – MDI).