Imported Photo Data Disappears

Hi

This is a problem I have experienced in the past but assumed it was something I had done.  It was just single imported photos that were not manipulated so I simply regenerated the data.  However this time it has happened on a complex set of drawings with photos that had to be scaled to match the drawing data so recovery would be a time consuming nightmare.

For a planning application I have to show a mock up of the new constructions as a photo montage.

So I imported some photos of the site, adjusted their scale to match the relevant drawing (there are 40 of them in the one file) and then generated (thankfully) some pdf files.  The file sizes are large but that is dealt with in another thread.  I saved the global dxf file, transferred it to another machine and intended to work on it while travelling in the UK.

When I opened it on my portable, all the photo data had disappeared so I had to wait until my return to sort it out.  Unfortunately, even the original file when I finally managed to open it, appeared to have lost all the of the manipulated photos from the dxf file.  Fortunately the huge pdf files remain that I can manually take to the planners but why has LibreCAD not saved this data properly?

I imported all the photos to a separate layer and all was OK until I saved it and moved it to my portable.  When I got back I noticed that the original drawing was corrupted and could not open (LibreCAD just hung and had to be forced to shut).  However the # version of the file was there so I opened that successfully and resaved it to overwrite the corrupted version but this is the file that is now missing all the photos.

Has anyone else had this problem?  Is there a solution?

Geoff

The photos are not saved in the dxf file, it's just a link. You have to carry the image files along with the dxf if you want to open the drawing on a different pc. It is best to have them in the same folder as the dxf, then they always will be found.

Thanks dellus, that explains the first part.  However where has it stored the scaled photos as the originals have not changed?  Also, that does not explain why the original file is now not finding the images.  Is there a hidden or system folder somewhere?  Is it possible to re-link them?

G

Position and scaling of the images is stored in the dxf file. If you switch on Draft mode, besides that text is simplified and hatch omitted, images are shown as an empty rectangle. Probably also when the image file is not found, but I haven't tested this.
The path to the image is written into the dxf file, as you can see when you check "Properties" of the image, but you can't edit it there. So if you use the dxf from a different pc or usb, the path is not correct anymore.
But if the image is in the same folder as the dxf, it is always found where ever it was when it was placed into the drawing. At least this is my experience. So it should suffice to move or copy the original image file to the same folder as the dxf file.