Hi all,
I use picture frame a lot to trace hand drawn items. The help menu says I need to use a bitmap image. I can never get this to work so I convert the file to a jpeg. This jpeg works with picture frame. Is it a typo in the help menu or I there some computer weardness going on?
Has anyone else had this problem?
“Bitmap” is a general term for a raster image file.
The specific bitmap files that the PictureFrame command supports are listed when you choose one:
jpg, png, pcs, tga, tif, bmp.
Bitonal (black and white) jpgs are not supported.
Thanks John that makes sence. However I scanned a wooden pattern which produced a pdf . I then used a online converter to change the pdf to a bmp. I tryed to use the bmp in picture frame but it did not work. So I converted the pdf to a jpg and it did work.
I am sorry if I am being really stupid. I also get line drawings as tiff files these also only work if I change them to jpg not bmp.
My guess is you saved the BMP as a black and white (bitonal) file.
Choose the “gray” option and you’ll get 256 shades of gray that will work.
You can probably tell your scanner to save the file as a png image then it will support a transparent alpha channel too if you need it.
Thanks. I will give that a try. Once I get the image in. It’s such a good tool.
Testing beats guessing 
The images on the left is 24 bit bmp (RGB)
The middle is a 32 bit bmp.
And the right is a 16 bit CMYK (jpeg, as bmp doesn’t support cmyk)
(For the record: it doesn’t like 8 bit cmyk either)
Rhino doesn’t like cmyk or above 24 bit. It doesn’t throw an error, it just shows the image as white or black.
Spot on Holo.
The number of times I have answered queries with people wondering why their image comes in black, makes me think that the Help file could do with a bit of a tune up. Many users would be unaware of this and some may not even know what the difference between RGB and CMYK is.
Currently the Help says:
Step 1: Select a bitmap file
Steve
Thanks for the information. It puts a bit more meat on the bones. I don’t know what the different image types are but now I know what the exact issue is, I can go and work it out.
Love this forum. I post something then go to bed. When I wake up there is an answer. The rhino never sleeps.
Or Rhino should be less picky
-Willem
We use a licensed library of image reading tools in Rhino called “LeadTools”. It has been a good compromise between functionality, supporting the most common bitmap image types, and keeping the price down that would have to be passed along to our customers.
How much more are you willing to pay to avoid doing a little bitmap file conversion occasionally?
I don’t think this is so much about price, but more that Rhino “pretends” to do the job instead of showing an error.
So I think everybody would be happy if Rhino just pop an error saying that it doesn’t supprt 32 bit, or CMYK when those file formats are used. Reading the image file data isn’t very hard, regardless of what licensed library you use, so it should quite easy to integrate as it’s only a handfull of image formats.
If I remember correctly, we don’t get that kind of information back from LeadTools. We send the file name to the function library and take what it gives us. If I understand correctly, it’s a pretty simple but ultimately reliable tool.
I could be remembering this incorrectly too, but I recall having this same conversation several times over the last 20 years or so.
@margaret, could you please update the help file with information about which bitmap formats cannot be read?
The change to the help will be in the Rhino 6 help.
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Hold the press!
I just checked with Rhino 6 WIP and it supports both CMYK JPEG and 32bit BMP (with alpha channel)!
Great work guys.
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