So, you have worked your socks off, creating a perfect picture or panorama for your next sales pitch but you want to finish it off with your companies logo, to give it that extra professional touch. Fear not, it is very easy when you know where to look.
Easy as 1,2,3:
First open the Settings menu and select Options. This can be done either right after you start Palette CAD or once you are working with a plan.
Next, from the left hand side menu select Input/Output and then choose Company info. Here the current selected logo will be shown, probably looking very similar to the screenshot below. As much as we'd love you to keep using our logo, should you want to change it to your own, click on Select your companies logo.
Now you will be in your computers explorer so from here just find and select the image you wish to use. Please notice that you may need to change the file format in order for your image to be visible. PNG is default but most commonly picture files will be under JPEG format.
Finally when saving the picture/panorama/film you wish to use, you have the option to further edit the appearance of your selected logo. These include size, positioning and opacity, and can be found under Company logo tab.
Well that's all for this time folks. Below is another one of my football inspired baths featuring the Palette CAD logo.
The holiday season is well and truly underway, and as with
most coins, there are two different sides to next few weeks. It is
important to acknowledge them both in order to come out on top in the end.
Firstly there is the buildup and everything that comes with
it. For most of us that means longer days at the office, dealing with equally
stressed out customers and putting in that extra push to end the year on a
high. Then there is the shopping, fighting your way through the masses, trying
to get the best deal out of the highly inflated prices. It is a ritual I go
through year after year and still every time it comes to it, I feel as lost as
Alice was in Wonderland. The creativity part of my brain goes into hibernation
for the month and the simplest task of choosing a gift for my loved ones
becomes equivalent of climbing Mount Everest. Finally there is the dreaded question,
what would you like for a present this year? I always think of a number of
useful things I need, in February and August that is, but, as there is never
pen and paper to hand to write them down, and my first choice Porsche 911 Turbo
is still “slightly” out of reach, all is forgotten by the time the question
comes around.
Still, then there is the other side of the coin, and this is
the one I prefer to focus on. Regardless of which holiday it is you celebrate,
it is the experience of sharing it with the people you love that makes it so
special. Those few days where the family gathers together and you can allow
yourself second and third helpings of diner, the work parties where its ok to
drink a little too much in front of your boss, going out and dancing the night
away with your friends that are back in town, or simply getting up late,
sitting down with something wet to drink and watching a seasonal movie. There
are decorations everywhere, bright lights, and if you are lucky enough, snow
outside.
Now we’ve set the mood, and it is this line of thinking that has
inspired me to take one of our Palette CAD master plans and add some seasonal
magic to it. It is a simple idea that can be used on previous plans of your own to give them a quick update as well as provide some seasonal advertising, in showrooms for example.You can also see the original plan and compare them at our
Facebook page.
This is then a perfect time to reflect on the year gone by
and look forward to the adventures in the coming one, and here at Palette CAD it
has been an eventful one.
The company has been growing very strongly this year and we
were represented at many national and international exhibitions, with our
attendance at one of the biggest in the tiling industry, Cersaie, recently
covered in a blog by myself further below.
Already we are looking at a busy schedule in the first half
of next year. To start off we will be at BAU 2013 in Munich between 14 and 19
January. It is one of world’s leading building trade fairs held every two
years. In 2009, BAU attracted more than 235,000 visitors and over 2000
exhibitors. To find out more about the trade fair and see the layout map you
can visit the official website at http://www.bau-muenchen.com/en/Home.
Palette CAD will be in hall A6 stand 530.
Also on January 31st and February 1st we
will be at KOK Austria 2013 in Wels. It is a very important exhibition focusing
on tiled stoves and home ceramics. You can find us in hall 20 stand C204. More
information about the exhibition can be found at http://www.kachelofenverband.com/exhibition/kok-austria-trade-fair/.
I will be present at both exhibitions so feel free to stop by for a visit.
Year 2012 also saw growth and investment for our
international market and therefore the company responded by increasing focus on
helping our international partners and customers. We have added international
social media to our already existing German sites. A new Tip of the Month feature has also been added to the existing blog, providing that extra little help for your common hotline queries.
The guys in the programming department have been working
very hard to bring out version 8 of the program, which is currently in its
testing phase for some of our German customers. We are hoping to have a solid version in time to cure the
January blues for our existing service partnership customers here in Germany.
What that means for the rest of us, non-native German
speakers, is that translation into other languages can begin soon after with a
view to release translated Palette CAD 8 in the first half of 2013.
I have been lucky enough to get a chance to play around with
Palette CAD 8, and since I got it in November, my creativity was still around,
allowing me to come up with the idea to reproduce a room from a very famous action
sci-fi movie, see if you can guess what it is. It goes to show that uses for the program are far from conventional so don't be afraid to experiment a little.
I have not been the only one thinking outside of the box and
our recently started international group on Facebook has seen some great and
innovative designs. Following its growing success I would like to invite our
users to join our group and post your designs for others to see. From next
month I will be choosing my favorite picture, which will then be featured in my
blog earning the creator a place in the spotlight. So far we have had
representation from UK, Germany, Sweden, Slovenia, Italy, Austria and Poland.
Time to get creative and represent, so join the group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/164040557075439/.
Below is the very first picture to be posted on the page,
designed by yours truly. It was one of my first projects and I drew my
inspiration from the recent Euro 2012 tournament and England’s overwhelming success.
In closing and as I said at the beginning, the end of 2012
is near, so I would like to leave you to think about the following:He's making a list, he's checking it twice,
he's gonna find out who's naughty or nice, Santa Claus is comin' to town!
For those returning to read my words of wisdom and inspiration, you may notice a new look and design to the blog.
To start off with, should English not be your first choice of languages you can now find Google Translate on the right hand side. Unfortunately my extraordinary charm and wit may be lost in translation but at least you can understand the core of the subject.
Should you find the blog to be a good read, please feel free to spread the joy using the new share options for the other social media outlets, also found on the right hand side.
I have also tried to make it easier to leave feedback quickly introducing the reaction boxes at the bottom of each blog. "Useful", "Interesting" and being British , I had to throw in "Fit for the Queen" in there. Don't forget you can also directly leave feedback or topic suggestions at egrabic@palettecad.com as well as ask for a request to be added to my personal blog mailing list.
While we are on the subject of change, take a look at the Palette CAD case study recently published by BCGSoft at www.bcgsoft.com/casestudies/palettecad.htm . It highlights the GUI changes in Palette CAD 8, giving it a more Windows 8 look and feel.
Lastly, and of course saving the best for last, I am very happy to announce our new Palette CAD International Group page on Facebook. I hope it will prove to be a great platform to share ideas, give and find tips and tricks, showcase your hard work for all to see and rate, a place to meet some fellow users and enthusiasts from across the globe and maybe a chance to practice your knowledge of other languages.
The place to be is www.facebook.com/groups/164040557075439/ so make sure you visit, tell your friends and join our group. To start us off I will be showcasing my England inspired bathroom so let me know what you think.
As always, it has been a pleasure, so, till next time...
Sometimes you want to have a
specific texture or a background for your design but these are not always
already stored in Palette CAD. Not a problem, because,
following these simple instructions you can add all the materials your heart
desires. Just remember the quality of your texture is determined by the picture
provided.
How does it work then:
First, start themateriallibrary browser by clickingon the Material button or by selecting Material from the
Properties menu.
In the material library, on the left hand side you can find a number of
catalogs. These can in turn contain a number of files which contains a number
of textures. For example catalog “_Colours” contains a file named “System” and
here you can find a number of textures.
The storage system is therefore as follows: Catalogs → Files→ Textures.
To save a material then, you should first, select a catalog. You can either use
the catalog "My Materials" or create a completely new catalog. To
create a new catalog, select “Material” and then right-click on your mouse and
select “New Catalog”. Name it something meaningful, I used “Own Materials” in
my example below.
Now you need to create a new file under your new catalog in which you can
import textures. Follow very similar steps as above only this time selecting
the newly created catalog, right-click on it and select “New file”. In the
example below I named the file “My Backgrounds”. Now you have created the basis
to save a new texture.
Next select the newly created file ( “My Backgrounds” in this example) and click
on the option "New Material " at the bottom of the browser.
Now youarein the material properties browser. You are now presented with two options.
Selecting “Colour” you can add any number of colours and
you can also add a specific RGB colour under “Other colours” and “Custom” if
you know the exact codes.
The other option is to select"Texture"
and in the field “Edit” enter the name for your new texture (
in the example below I used “PaletteCAD Stand”). Then
click on"Select Texture"
and you will be taken to your operating systems browser.
From here find the location of the required textureon your PC and open it.
It is now saved in your library and can be used or
edited in the future like any other already existing material.
Well I wrote a little about the change in weather last month but if anything it is clear to me after the weekend just gone that the Summer and maybe even the Autumn have long gone by.
Having spent a few days in Scandinavia last week training our new users from the Jøtul, Norway and also visiting our partners Lars and Marianne Lüning in Sweden, I hoped to come home and enjoy a warmer weekend. Having however spent the weekend scraping the snow off the car and having snowball fights in sub zero temperatures I think I should have stayed away for a few more days.
Luckily the office is far more comfortable so lets reflect on the month gone by. Yours truly has been pretty busy hopping around Europe, starting with an exciting week at the Cersaie, Italy at the end of September. As I said before, last years show was huge and this year it only got bigger. Attendance broke the 100,000 mark and with 32% of that number being international visitors, again, new records were set. The numbers really highlight Cersaie as the key international event for ceramic tile and bathroom furnishing sectors.
Most companies in the ceramic tiling sector had a line representing wood floor imitations, while the furnishing has seen a mixture of inspirations from the past and also some excellent futuristic designs.
The Loop outdoor shower from Idiha Design really caught my eye as well as "Cup" Artceram washbasin line.
Personally I found the stand from British Ceramic Tile (see below) to be very attractive mixing some of the great British landmarks with beautiful designs. I put up a few photos here I snapped up at Cersaie and also a few during the event on our Twitter page @PCadOverseas , but keep an eye for our upcoming international Facebook site, where I will be uploading the entire album.
Our stand was very busy too and our visitors were also very geographically diverse. It was a first time I had to call upon all of my language skills in one day, meeting with users and potential customers form all over former Yugoslavia, numerous German speaking countries as well as far corners of the world, such as Australia, Alaska, India, Brazil, Russia, Iran, to name just a few, where I got a chance to finally put my English to good use.
We also had our representatives meeting with the biggest names at the show to insure that in the future we can bring these great names and new designs and add them alongside our already huge Palette CAD catalogues.
Speaking of Palette CAD and improvements ties me nicely into our next topic, the unveiling of the Palette CAD 8 at our User Days event in Dresden, Germany. October 11th and 12th saw some 200 users get their hands on the early German version of the program. Here they were treated to two full days of presentations and workshops, showing off the new stylish design of the version 8, how it ticks as well as some of the new features in the programs, such as Palette PLAY. The development team is now busy working out the final kinks before we can start work on the international versions of the program, aiming to be distributed world wide next Summer.
Below is the German teaser entitled " Now it starts" shown at Dresden but I will be bringing you more information and a more in-depth review in the coming months blogs so watch this space.
Described in the video, following the on-screen order, as: Professional, Flexible, Exact, Impressive, Intuitive, Fast and Simple.
Finally last week I was in Fredrikstad, Norway, holding a days basic stoves and fireplaces training for our friends at Jøtul, specialists for cast iron stoves and fireplaces. They now have a team dedicated to designing with Palette CAD and I will be awaiting their work to show off on our future Facebook page.
Coming very shortly to our blog will be Tip of the Month feature providing quick tips and tricks for our international Palette CAD users. In the mean time I will leave you all with a challenge of designing a warm, homely room that Santa and all his little helpers would be proud of.
Above is some food for thought so get inspired and send your work to egrabic@palettecad.com for marks and a chance to get yourself and your company a mention in future social media material. Above all, and as always, have fun with it!
September is fast coming to an
end, meaning work is once again picking up, as we get closer to the business
end of the year for many industries, and certainly for us here at Palette CAD.
The following is a little update on our activities in the coming weeks.
Most notably the Cersaie exhibition in Bologna kicks
off next week. With over 80,000visitors
from 147 countries last year, once again, we can expect a great show. As
mentioned in my last blog Palette CAD will be attending and if you are lucky
enough to make it out there be sure to visit us. For those of you not able to
attend, keep an eye on our Twitter posts at “@PCadOverseas” as I will try to
post some pictures from the exhibition.
There is also exciting news for our
international Palette CAD users. Tip of the month, a regular feature on our
German homepage, is coming to our blog in English as of October. It is written
by our hotline team dealing with users queries on a daily basis. From here they
select regularly asked questions and create a PDF with step by step
instructions for an easy solution.
Finally I would like to inform all our blog
readers that we will be starting an international Facebook page in the near
future. The idea is to showcase the power and possibilities of Palette CAD
through examples of project pictures made by our users world-wide. It will also
provide a great platform for both our users and those interested in our
software to connect with each other creating a world-wide network of ideas,
suggestions and feedback.
With this in mind I would like to call on our
readers already using Palette CAD to share their visions with us. For a chance
to feature your work on our Facebook page please send us JPEG files of your
Palette CAD projects entitled “PCAD pictures for Facebook” using: egrabic@palettecad.com with a little project description. Please note that by sending us your
pictures, you are giving us permission to use them on our upcoming Facebook
page.
To kick us off, you can find some inspiration
below courtesy of our co-worker Steffen Jantzen. I chose this picture following
the shock of leaving the house this morning to find the temperature just over
5C in what is officially still summer for two days. It is there to remind us to
enjoy every last second of warmth before Santa gets on his way.
If you have any thoughts or suggestions about the blog please
let me know by commenting below or send me an e-mail at the above address.
Between 25th
and 28th September Palette CAD team will be at the Cersaie
exhibition in Bologna, Italy to showcase our planning software.
We have developed a planning feature in our software, tiling technology, specifically
for the tiling sector and you can see it for yourselves by visiting our stand.
If you want
to find out more about Palette CAD, if you have any questions or just fancy a
chat with our friendly staff, please come visit us at Hall 15/A, Stand H9.
For more
information about the exhibition and the layout map, please visit the official website below.