Multi Bitmap

When Multi Bitmap is selected, the area to the right displays the Multi Bitmap Options.  That portion of the dialog looks like this:

The concept of the Multi Bitmap feature is to allow the badge designer to display one of a range of bitmap images within the same rectangle on a single badge design. The bitmap to display is determined by the contents of a user-selectable field within the database.  For more information on relating badge data to a bitmap, please see Database Field Assignments.

If desired, the bitmap can be rendered as a Ghost.  This means it will be converted to Black and White, and its intensity set to the % value.  The lower the number the fainter the ghost image.

To allow selectable display of bitmaps in a rectangle, you must provide the file name of the bitmaps you wish to have available. This is done by clicking on the ADD button. When clicked, the Graphic Selection dialog will appear:

 If you are not sure of the name and file path of the graphic file you wish to select,  you can click on the Browse button to bring up a standard file selection dialog.  You will be able to read in a variety of bitmap formats, including 24 bit Windows ™ DIBs, 8 bit Windows ™ BMPs, Portable Network Graphics PNG, 8 bit Zsoft PCXs and JPEG JPGs.  If your VGA monitor is set to 256 colors you will still be able to read in 24 bit DIB’s but the 16 million colors will be optimized down to 256.  As these files can be large and optimizing takes time, you might want to consider converting them to 256 colors permanently, with an external graphic program like PC Paintbrush for Windows, PhotoMagic or similar program

The Capture button allows the capture of a bitmap from the video system (or Video for Windows^®  in some versions).   Once pressed, the normal video capture window will appear and a suitable video picture captured (see Capturing Video Photographs in the Operations chapter).  When the Freeze (or Capture in Video for Windows^® ) button is pressed a box will appear over the picture.  The aspect ratio of the box will be that of the bitmap holder rectangle (minus any border) to be filled with the picture, so it is wise to make sure that the rectangle is the desired shape first.  If you change the rectangle size after the capture, the picture will be distorted so that it fills the rectangle.  You can drag and size the box by pulling the edges or corners respectively.  The aspect ratio will be maintained if the corners are dragged.  Click on the Save button to write the image to a file.  You will be able to save the captured bitmap in a variety of formats.  Click on the Save File as Type pull-down  to see what types are available for your video capture board.  In terms of file size the same picture will be largest if saved as a 24 bit DIB file and smallest as a JPG file.  8 bit BMP and 8 bit PCX formats lie between those two in order of file size.

In a similar manner, the Acquire button allows the capture of bitmaps via a TWAIN compatible graphics device (or Video for Windows^®  in some versions).  If this option has been installed, this button will be available.  A capture window will appear containing several buttons.  Clicking on the one marked Acquire will start the TWAIN (or Video for Windows^® ) interface.  Once the image has been captured it can be composed, cropped and saved to disk in exactly the same way as a video captured picture (see previous paragraph).

Repeat the ADD process as many times as necessary to include all bitmaps you would like to have available to the program. If you wish to change the location or content of one of the bitmaps, select the bitmap name in the list and click the EDIT button. This will bring up the Graphic Selection dialog and allow capturing, acquiring and browsing as detailed above. If you wish to remove one of the entries, select the appropriate bitmap name and click DELETE.

When all of the desired bitmaps are in the list, you may arrange then in any order by selecting the bitmap name and hitting either the UP  or DOWN  arrows to the right of the list box. The bitmap that is in the top position is the default image and will be displayed when no match is made between the badge data and the list of bitmaps.

Starting with version 5.40 the images will be stored directly into the IDC or CTM file as appropriate.  This means that it is no longer necessary to maintain the original image files, although it is probably a good idea to do so, for future reference.  In particular, if you rearrange the order of the images, as described in the previous paragraph, you will need the original files again.  This is not true however, if you just add another image to the end of the list.