Issues with Printing High Resolution Ortho Imagery from Civil 3D

[sfleming98GJ7]

Hello. 

I have been having issues with high resolution orthoimage tiles not printing correctly.  My preferred method to attach images is to use the MAPIINSERT command and insert the image file as an external reference.  When using this method, the images come in clearly on the correct coordinate system and appear crystal clear while I am working in autocad, but as soon as I go to print, the printed version of the image becomes very light and illegible with some type of shading issues.

I have already found a work around to this issue with printing by attaching the images to a drawing using the MAPWSPACE command and linking to the image as opposed to referencing it and modifying the transparency settings through the Task Pane.  This is not my ideal solution though because this method does not allow me to reference the images to other drawings and makes working on projects with other employees difficult when we cannot share an external reference that has the image files.  I am looking for a way to print correctly while still attaching the images as an external reference.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[JamesMaeding]

Note that you can also get large ortho images from a free product called MOBAC (Mobile atlas creator).

It grabs from multiple free online sources and makes an image of the area you window, at the zoom level you want.

It allows custom data sources, and they used to be distributed but are not now.

I can provide those, and its all ethical and legal as you are always bound to follow each provider's rules, like max 2gb images per day from google earth. Its just that the MOBAC makers cannot ensure you follow the rules, so played it safe by making us create the data connection files.

Mobac can make a png with world file, and you bring that in using map or raster design. No more live connection images that may or may not plot well on a certain day.

[sfleming98GJ7]

Thank you for your reply James.  Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the files that your are referring to and if the images still have to brought in via map or raster design, that is still not an ideal solution.  My goal in this thread is to determine what is causing the images to not print properly through the importing process that I am using and to see if there is a solution that will allow this to work properly so that others at my company who are already accustomed to our current process can find a solution without having to reinvent the wheel with a whole new set of files and procedures. I already have a fix through the mapwspace task pane, but it is not easy to teach everyone how to do it this way. If there is not solution, then we may have to take an alternate route but I am hoping that someone else has gone through this issue and has found a fix.

Thanks again.

[JamesMaeding]

@sfleming98GJ7 

I actually misunderstood, thought you were using the acad online images.

So if you have the images yourself, and are just attaching, You would switch gears and try other plot drivers. The adesk pdf one is good, but I switch between that and pdf-exchange, and adobe.

I may still be misunderstanding you, as the mapinsert can warp images for you so I forget if you can resave those out. I'm wondering what happens if you just use image command to insert by hand, does that plot ok if you do that?

Also, are these huge images, and are you using transparency?

[sfleming98GJ7]

From what I have learned, the issue does appear to be with the size of the images. They are huge.  Each one is around 90mb and I have used over a dozen in certain projects to cover the entirety of the limits.  When I connect to them with the mapwspace, it does not attach the images so the huge file size does not occur and they print clear.  When I reference them, they are huge files and do not print correctly. I have tried all available printers, transparency, modifying the image shading, brightness and contrast and saving the images as smaller sized jpegs as opposed to the tiff files that they come as and so far nothing has helped.  

[JamesMaeding]

@sfleming98GJ7 

Ok, the first thing I hear is the 90 mb tiffs and then 12 of them.

As a rule of thumb, I always convert images to jpg with compression level 80.

Yes, its slightly lossy but I don't notice til level 70 or so, and if you had no compression on the tiffs, jpg can be 50x smaller file sizes. If you had lzw or deflate comp on the tif, likely just 50% smaller as jpg.

Second, tons of high res images is generally not useful for human size exhibits.

You may need them when plotting 40 scale, but then should only use one image or so.

Its the big exhibits that need all the areas, and then you should be making a 25% res image (1/4 squared = 16x smaller). I commonly use QGIS (free again) to combine images, and you can then downsample using GIMP, Raster design, or other heavy duty image programs.

I prefer to do that myself, rather than let the printer driver downsample at plot time. You did not mention your image handling settings in the plot drivers btw, likely the culprit, so you might mention that.

thx

[Anonymous]

printing from paper space? north arrow tied to viewframe? there's issues with that. MAPWSPACE to connect an image has been my work around too.

[sfleming98GJ7]

Thanks James,

I used to use QGIS for modifying coordinates of shapefiles but since the newer versions of civil3D seem to do this automatically, I have not used it for quite some time. I have never used it for combining images though and am curious as to how I would go about doing that.  Are there any links to tutorials that would explain this process that you could direct me to?  Regarding converting the images with compression level 80, excuse my ignorance, but I do not know what software to use to do this.  In a previous trial run to solve this issue, another individual at my company used an online converter to convert the images to downsized jpegs but I do not recall any mention of compression levels.  I believe it was just an online tool where you drag and drop the image files and click start or something of that nature and it spits out a reduced sized jpeg of the image file.  These files lost a ton of resolution through this program and ended up looking pretty terrible.  I would be interested in trying both of these approaches if you wouldn't mind providing a bit more guidance on how to do this.  As a side note, another reason that I believe these image files are so large is that there is more than just the aerial imbedded in the file.  I am not sure how to extract the additional data, but I believe they also contain surface elevation data as well.  I am not well versed in Recap, but I would assume that there would be a way using the program to separate out the image data from the surface data and anything else that I may not need that is unnecessarily increasing the image size.  Any insight on this as well would be appreciated.

Thanks again.

[Anonymous]

So are you plotting from a viewport in PS? The VP can apparently become corrupted due to the linked north arrow, among other reasons, presumably. See https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/civil-3d-forum/raster-image-washed-out-in-viewports/td-p/7294103 

[JamesMaeding]

@sfleming98GJ7 

I would definately read the link from @Anonymous , that sounds like the right tree to bark up.

As for image manipulation, I can tell you are wading into the swamp, but not swimming yet.

There are many tools out there, so my approach is just one, but it involves free tools and is ultra stable.

First, to crop, downsize, otherwise edit a single image file, get GIMP.

It will offer the compression settings you want control of, and handles mega large images.

That will let you downsize an image by some factor, and save with desired compression and image type. Its free, and when you get it, set it to "single window mode" as by default its pallettes can be all over your screen.

once you resize, insert the new image in acad and match up old window with new to position it. I have lisps to make the world file, I forget how map does it.

To combine images, I use QGIS, and it has an image merge function. I recall you cannot merge to jpg though, its like you do tif I think, and then convert that.

Your tiff likely does not have elevation data, they tend to be either terrain values, or colors.

There should be another tif for terrain, and qgis will typically help.

Drag the image into qgis and see what it says.

Lots of specifics I left out. Its up to you if you want to learn more on this, just keep replying.

I find most people do not know image formats and tools well, so take advantage of what we know here and spread it 🙂

[sfleming98GJ7]

I have tried printing from both paper space and model space with larger and smaller views of the same image to see if anything made a difference and nothing has.  Regardless of how I print from where, as long as the images are attached as opposed to linked to, they print terribly even though they look perfect in the actual drawing. 

I have attached an image of what I am seeing to better define my issue.  On the attachment, the image on the top left is of a pdf printed from autocad with the image file referenced using the MAPIINSERT command. The image on the top right is the same image printed from autocad using the MAPWSPACE connection, and the image at the bottom left is a screenshot straight from the autocad drawing model space prior to printing.  As you can see, the top left image comes out very poorly while the rest look correct.

[sfleming98GJ7]

Thanks James

I will look into this and see what I can do and let you know how it works out.  I appreciate your comments.

[Pointdump]

Steve,
What C3D Version are you using, and do you have all updates, including Map 3D updates? What file format are your images? MrSID, GeoTiff, JPG? And is there any DVIEW/Twist rotation involved?
For Merging and Cropping have you tried Raster Design?
Interesting question you asked about data in an image file. I think most image files contain only pixel color. GeoTiff can contain either color or elevation data for each pixel, but I've never seen both.
Can you post one of your images for testing?

Dave

[sfleming98GJ7]

Dave, 

Unfortunately, the file exceeds the maximum size to attach so I cannot attach it to this message but all of the images that I use are easily available from the indiana spatial data portal if you want to grab one and play around with it. You just go to:

downloads: Indiana Spatial Data Portal: Indiana University (iu.edu) 

and find any location and download the tiff file from the orthophotography refresh category.  I am using civil 3D 2019 and have all of the available updates. There is no twist or rotation applied and the image files are tiffs. This same issue happens with every image file on every job and even from blank drawings where all I have in them is the image referenced.  

I did take James's advice and downloaded GIMP and resized my image and it was able to reduce it way down to 8mb while still appearing to retain the quality but it still prints the same way when using it as an xref.  I have attached this reduced size image since the original is too large. 

[Pointdump]

Steve,
I grabbed a 98MB GeoTiff from your link. You can download it from WeTransfer >>>Here<<<. (It's actually in Illinois, along the Wabash) When I Drag-n-Drop it into QGIS it's stunningly sharp and pretty. In Civil 3D, using either MAPIINSERT or MAPCONNECT the image is washed out. In the Style Editor I can play with Brightness and Contrast to vivid things up to where the image looks decent. I haven't tried plotting yet.
Dave

Image_1.png

[Pointdump]

Steve,
I just now plotted to PDF and find same as you, MAPIINSERT is washed-out and MAPCONNECT is vivid and pretty. Other than confirming your results in 2022 version, I guess I don't have anything to offer.
Dave

[sfleming98GJ7]

Dave,

This is the same process that I have taken and using the Mapconnect, I got the image to look and print perfectly.  I still have a pretty sharp image that appears in autocad when I use the MAPIINSERT command though so I'm not sure why yours isn't coming in very good.  It all looks good in cad but only prints right though connect. When I use MAPIINSERT, the only options I have to toggle with the image that I am aware of are the brightness and contrast and nothing I do to those parameters is of any benefit.

[Pointdump]

Steve,
"When I use MAPIINSERT, the only options I have to toggle with the image that I am aware of are the brightness and contrast and nothing I do to those parameters is of any benefit."
Yup, changing brightness and contrast doesn't help the image.
Dave

[sfleming98GJ7]

Thanks Dave,

It just doesn't make any sense to me why this is happening.  I originally thought it was due to the large size of the image file but after reducing it down to the 8mb version and still having the same issue, I don't know what could be causing it anymore.  

[Pointdump]

Steve,
I'm baffled. I've used MAPIINSERT many times before and not gotten a washed-out image. I'm wondering if it's related to the >>>Raster Bands<<< that make up these images.
Dave