Uploading Overlays
For imagery, external designs, and plansets, HelioScope allows the user to upload images as overlay files in the Designer.
First, click the Advanced tab and select Overlay controls. Once there, you will have the option to either upload the imagery by clicking the Upload Overlay button and selecting the appropriate file, or dragging the file into the box below so it turns green.
Acceptable file types include jpg, jpeg, png, kmz, and kml. Other file types will not be able to be uploaded.
NOTE: KMZs cannot have their transparency or size changed at the moment. If you want to do that in HelioScope, we would suggest using a jpg or png instead.
Editing an Overlay
Once your overlay has been uploaded, it will become available for all designs in a project. This overlay can be turned on and off by clicking the checkbox to the right of the image.
Now that we have our overlay, we need to know how to manipulate it:
- The mouse icon will center and zoom in the designer on the overlay. Use this to quickly reorient the view on an overlay.
- To edit the overlay's size, shape, and position, click the edit button with the pencil icon. Once selected, we can control the overlay in a number of ways.
- Click and drag the dots on the edge of any side to resize the overlay in that direction
- Click and drag the corners to resize the entire overlay and maintain the same aspect ratio
- Click and drag the center dot to move the overlay around the designer
- Click and drag the floating point (seen to the right in the above image) to rotate the overlay
- The trash can icon will delete the overlay and remove it from the project.
- Opacity can be controlled with the sliding bar. Higher opacity is to the right, while lower opacity is to the left.
What if I have a site plan in PDF?
Not to worry! Either export your site plan to a JPG or PNG, or take a screenshot of it. Then, upload the image as detailed above. You can read more about how to scale site plans in our Site Plan Upload Documentation
Why isn't my image appearing in the designer?
If your image isn't appearing in the designer, it's likely that you're using an unsupported file format. If you're using a KMZ or KML which was created using a TIFF image, that will not appear in the designer either.
File Size vs. Image Resolution - Site plans are mostly white space, which compresses really well. So file size is not a good indicator of image processing requirements. Instead, we recommend using the resolution of the image as your gauge. On a modern computer 3600 x 2400 pixels should give you high resolution without slowing down your image editing process. Need to downsample your image resolution? There are a bunch of free websites that will update your photo for you including: imageoptimizer.net, picresize.com & imageresize.org
That said, we still recommend keeping file sizes below 10mb to ensure you can upload to HelioScope.
Keywords: overlay, scaled drawings, site plan, new building, new construction, scale image, KMZ