Change Xcode "image size" of a vector PDF asset - xcode

I'm updating an existing macOS app with new images.
One of them is a vector image in PDF format. When I add the PDF to an image set, Xcode determined a size for it:
The existing dialog has a larger image, so this new one renders smaller. However, I should be able to scale it to whatever size I like as it's a vector image.
It seems the size comes from metadata in the PDF file. The Inspector in Preview shows:
Are there tools I can use to tweak those values? I don't want to resample the PDF or use tools like ImageMagick - as I said, this is a vector image.

Related

Create small high quality PDF embedding optimized PNG?

I'm trying to create a small PDF file, embedding one optimized PNG image displayed as a header and footer on a 3 page PDF (same image must appear 6x in the PDF)
My optimized PNG image is only 2.3KB. It looks very sharp.
Failed with libreoffice
When I insert just one instance of the 2.3KB PNG image into a Libreoffice Writer doc containing only text, then export as PDF I can see that the image gets re-compressed to JPG and the resulting PDF file grows by about 40KB after adding the image. It also loses quality, the PNG also gets JPG fuzzy edges.
If I right click the image and select compression, there is no way to disable recompressing the image (it's already optimized better than libreoffice could do it) I've tried setting a compression level of 0,1,9 etc. Choosing JPG, no resize, lossless, etc but there was no improvement.
Failed with wkhtmltopdf
I also tried making a test page and used wkhtml2pdf but it did the same thing. Adding the low quality flag made no difference.
PDF Spec suggests PNG is supported?
From skimming the PDF spec, it looks like PNG images are supported.
Even plain text PDF files are surprisingly large
The disappointing thing is also when I take a 7KB HTML file which is basically just <html><body><p>foo...</p><p>bar...</p> (only about 15 paragraphs) with no CSS. The resulting 2 page PDF file is 30KB. Why should a 7kb (almost plain text) file become 30kb as a PDF?
Suggestions?
Can someone please suggest how to make a small PDF file in Linux?
I need to include 7KB of text and repeat one PNG image 6 times.
Manually or programatically. I'll take whatever I can get at this point.
PDF Spec suggests PNG is supported?
PNG isn't supported per se; PDF allows embedding JPEG images as-is, but not PNG images. PDF does borrow a set of features of the PNG format, however.
rinohtype (full disclosure: I'm the author) tries to embed as much as possible from PNG images as-is into the PDF. This does involve some bit-juggling to separate the alpha channel from the color data for example, but no reencoding of the image is performed. It does not (yet) support interlaced PNGs.
rinohtype should be able to do what you want to achieve. But please note that it currently is in a beta stage, so you might encounter some bugs.
Even plain text PDF files are surprisingly large
To keep the PDF size as small as possible, make sure not to embed/subset any of the fonts. Use only the fonts from the base 14 PDF fonts which are provided by PDF readers.
What you want is certainly achievable. Regarding the image quality, I would recommend making your image twice the size that you want it to actually display at in the PDF to keep it looking sharp.
As to the size, I've just modified a test in my PDF writer module (WIP..) to include a 7.2K png, 200px x 70px, in a PDF twice and the PDF came out at 6.8K 8). There's not much text included, but more text will only add what it's worth + a small percentage.
You can see the module and original test here.. https://github.com/DoccaPDF/docca-pdf-writer/blob/master/src/tests/writer.js#L40
That test adds ~112K of images to the PDF and results in a 103K PDF.
Of course not all images are created equal so you milage may vary..
*the images are only actually added to the PDF once, but are displayed multiple time.

Appcelerator - Saving image to a file from ImageView with fixed resolution

I am trying to save the content of an ImageView into a file and save it as an image. The simple code snippet which I am using is:
writeImageToFile(imageView.image);
The function writeImageToFile, saves the blob in a file which contains the image displayed in the image view. All good and fine till here.
Now the point noticed in here is that, I have defined the ImageView with the width and height as 150dip. After saving the image into a file, for iPhone 5, we find that the image resolution is 300x300, and for iPhone 6 Plus it is 450x450. The image resolution varies with the screen density, which I can understand.
But my query is that is there any way to always keep the resolution fixed to 150x150 pixels. Am not sure if this is possible out of the box with Appcelerator or do we need to use external modules.
Note: This is also applicable for Android too.
You can use the Blob functions to check the image size, then decide if you need to resize. You can use imageAsResized (http://docs.appcelerator.com/platform/latest/#!/api/Titanium.Blob-method-imageAsResized) to make a 150x150 image.

How to convert Autocad drawing to image?

I have an Autocad drawing which is a plan for land squares where each square contains a number.
I tried to convert it to image by choosing: File --> Export Data --> and file format Bitmap (bmp). (I have Autocad 2013 Mac version)
the file converted to image, but the quality is too bad, I can't see the land numbers inside the square when I zoom in the image.
I tried also with Postscript (PS file format), quality is a bit better but it's still bad.
Is there away to convert Autocad file to image but still preserve it's high quality details
I need to convert the file to image because I would like to publish it online on my website. maybe there other was to publish autocad file on line, if so, please advice. But the trick I want the background of the autcad (plan) to be transparent so that I could display it on top of Google maps. I if I used autocad plugin I can't make it transparent. right?
Use the PLOT (for the current drawing) or PUBLISH (for batching) commands to produce high quality images.

SSRS can't properly render *some* images within PDF

I have a report that renders images (jpg) that have been collected from various sources. This works fine within the report viewer, and when exporting via Excel.
However, when exporting to PDF, about 5% of the images are rendered incorrectly as can be seen below, with the original on the left, and what is rendered on the right;
I find that if I open up one of these images in mspaint, and just click save, on the next report-run the image is now rendered correctly.
Are there any rules as to what image properties/format are valid for SSRS to render the image correctly within a PDF? Essentially I'd like to somehow find these images that will render incorrectly before the report is run and fix them prior...
Current Workaround
I never ended up getting SSRS to display the the problem images as they were, however, determining before running the report which images would be included in the non-displayable set so they could be converted to a supported format (automatically) was also a solution.
In my case, all images were supplied via users uploading to a website, so I was able to identify and convert images as they arrived. For all existing images, I was able to run a script that identified the problem images and convert them.
Identifying problem images
From the thousands of images I had, I was able to determine that the images that wouldn't render correctly had the following properties:
Image had CMYK colorspace or;
Image had extended color profiles or;
Both of the above
Converting an image
I was originally using the standard .NET GDI (System.Drawing) to manipulate images however the API is often prone to crashes (OutOfMemoryException) when dealing with images that have extra data. As such, I switched to using ImageMagick where for each of the identified images I:
Stripped the color profiles and;
Converted to RGB
Note that the conversion to RGB from CMYK without stripping the color profiles was not enough to get all images to render properly.
I ended up just doing those items on every image byte stream I received from users (without first identifying the problem) before saving an uploaded image to disk. After which, I never had the rendering problem again.
Because of the way the output looks I would say those JPEG images have CMYK colorspace but the SSRS assumes they use RGB colorspace and sets the wrong colorspace in PDF.
If you can post a JPEG image and a sample PDF I can give you more details.
I've had exactly the same problem with an image rendering correctly on screen but appearing like the one in the question when I exported the report to PDF. Here's how I solved it.
The Problem
The first clue was this article I came across on MSDN. It seems that regardless of the original image density, the PDF renderer in SSRS resizes all images to 96 DPI. If the original size of the image is larger than the size of the page (or container), then you will get this problem.
The Solution
The solution is to resize the source image such that it will fit on your page. The requires a little calculation depending on your page size and margin settings.
In my case, I'm using A4 paper size, which is 21cm by 29.7cm. However, my left margin is 1.5cm, and my right margin is 0.5cm, for a total inner width of 19cm. I allow an extra 0.5 cm as a margin of error, so I use an inner width of 18.5cm.
21 cm - 1.5 cm - 0.5 cm - 0.5 cm = 18.5 cm
As noted before, the resolution generated by the PDF renderer is 96 DPI (dots per inch). For those of us not in the United States or Republic of Liberia, that's 37.79 DPC (dots per centimetre). So, to get our width:
18.5 cm * 37.79 dpc = 699 pixels
Your result may be different depending on (1) the paper size you are using, and (2) the left and right margins.
As the page is higher than it is wide, we need only resize the width while keeping the image proportional. If you're using a paper size which is wider than it is tall, you'd use the length instead.
So now open the source image in Paint (or your image editor of choice), and proportionally resize the image to the desired width (or length) in pixels, save it, import it into your container, and size the image visually with respect to the container. It should look the same on screen, and now render correctly to PDF.
This is an issue reported to Microsoft Connect.
From SSRS 2008 How to get the best image quality possible?:
The image behavior you see in PDF is a result of some image conversions that the PDF renderer does, based on how the PDF specification requires that serialize images into PDF.
We know it's not ideal, and we classify the loss of image quality as a product issue. Therefore, it's difficult to really say what to do to get the best quality image.
Anecdotally, I have heard that customers have good results when the original image is a BMP

Alpha transparency in indexed-png images

Here is an image:
This image is a simple black-to-transparent gradient saved in full RGBA PNG.
Here is the same image, converted to indexed-alpha PNG by GIMP (Photoshop produces the same result)
As you can see, the gradient is now half-opaque, half-transparent.
Here is the same image again, only this time it was converted to indexed-alpha PNG by a PHP script I wrote:
So my question is: Why are GIMP and Photoshop unable to support partial transparency in indexed images, when the PHP script clearly shows that such an image can be created with no problems?
Is there anything "wrong" with an image whose pallette contains alpha information?
A more programming-related question: Does this transparency in the last image work in Internet Explorer 6?
I've finally found the actual answer: There is a metadata entry that allows you to define the alpha value of each colour in the colour table. Most graphics programs don't make use of this, but it does exist and can be used, in particular by GD.
Another option besides fireworks is pngquant, a command line application that will convert a rgba png into an indexed png with transparency.
I found this post which talks some more about how to use it.
IE6 and earlier in windows does not support variable transparency PNGs without annoying workarounds. An indexed PNG will only show the fully opaque parts which usually works pretty well. A drop shadow would disappear but the opaque parts of the logo or icon would continue to show.
This page has a better explanation and instructions with more png compression and quantization tools: http://calendar.perfplanet.com/2010/png-that-works/
For the record, PNG does not literally support indexed images with an alpha channel. What is really happening is that PNG allows you to add additional colors to the color table (i.e. index) with alpha values in those colors... not a complete alpha channel. FWIW...
Yeah I know what you mean. Fireworks is the only image editing program that I know of that can create and edit PNG8+Alpha without problems. I wish more paint programs would support this format cause Fireworks is expensive!
I found a way in GIMP to create or convert an image with reduced color palette and alpha channel.
The trick is to add a mask to the layer.
Full steps to reproduce:
Have your image in one layer
Add a mask to the layer. Select Transfer layer's alpha channel.
Convert to Indexed (Image -> Mode -> Indexed...)
Save as PNG
Now your image has reduced colors and reduced size, but it keeps your smooth transparency.

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