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Tracing images

Import a photo, scan, or datasheet drawing, tell BearCAD its real-world scale, and trace over it with the normal sketch tools. The image is saved inside the document and behaves like any other element.

Importing​

File → Import Image… places a PNG or JPEG on the ground plane. For a different plane, right-click that construction plane in the Elements pane → Import image on this plane….

Images draw slightly translucent: bodies in front hide them, but sketch lines stay visible on top.

Setting the scale​

Find a feature whose real size you know — a scale bar, a ruler, a printed dimension:

  1. Select the image and click Calibrate scale.
  2. Click two points at either end of the known feature — a dot under the cursor previews each click, and a line connects the points (Esc cancels).
  3. The length field pre-fills with the span's current measured length; type the real length, Enter.

The image rescales so the span measures exactly that length.

The marker line stays visible whenever the image is selected, and its length stays editable in the context pane. Drag either point to move it (the field re-syncs to the measured span — apply the real length again to rescale), or click a point and press Delete to remove it, then click to re-place it.

A calibrated tracing image on the ground plane with sketch lines traced over the plate outline

Moving and constraining​

The Move tool moves an image: click its quad in the viewport (or its Elements pane row) to pick it, then set the translation.

A calibrated image's two reference points are regular sketch points: with the Constraint tool in a sketch on the image's plane, hold one coincident to a vertex, a line, or the origin/axes — the whole image translates to follow (scale never changes). From scripts:

bearcad.select{ kind = "image", index = 0, point = 0 }   -- calibration point 0 or 1
bearcad.select({ kind = "line", index = 2, ["end"] = "start" }, true)
bearcad.add_geometric_constraint("coincident")

Tracing​

Sketch on the image's plane as usual and trace what you need. Because the image is calibrated, the traced geometry is in real units — dimension it, extrude it, print it.

Help​

A tracing image's Context pane, each field explained