Adding an Overlay

An overlay is a picture that is "draped" over the terrain. It can be used, for example, to add a scanned image of your house blueprints for use as a drawing template.

To add an overlay:

1.   If you have not already done so, first import your picture using the Picture Import Wizard.

2.   Select Add Overlay.

3.   Click to place the overlay on the landscape.

4.   Move and size the overlay as needed for accurate size and placement. To do this accurately, change the grid size to a known distance on the picture. For example, when sizing the blueprint in the example shown below, you would set the grid size to 10' because that dimension is shown in the blueprint. You can also use the 3D Dimension object, which is especially useful for dimensions that run at an angle.

The following is an example of a simple house blueprint (created in a CAD program) which has been added to the landscape design using the Overlay object.

Here's the same design after the house has been added using the Add House tool.

Tips:

•      Before you can use an overlay you must first import it using the Picture Import Wizard.

•      Overlays appear in a realtime walkthrough by default. You can prevent this by unchecking the Show in Realtime Walkthrough option.  See Overlay Properties for details.

•      When you are finished working with your overlay you can simply delete it. Or, if you would rather keep it for a reference, you can temporarily hide it using the Show/Hide Objects command. You can also put it into its own layer and hide the layer. See Using Layers for details.

See also:

Overlay Properties
Setting Object Properties
Snap Settings
Selecting Objects
Selecting Points
Editing Objects
Picture Import Wizard
Adding a 3D Dimension