Use PDF as background image (floorplan) for pins

[khuslid]

I’ll try again, since I got no reponse last time:
Is it possible to use PDF as background image for XY (pins)?

I managed to get the PDF in as background image through generating an URL, but the pin will then not stick to the same location when zooming in and out.

Anyone with suggestions/knowlage about this?

[Steve]

khuslid:

Is it possible to use PDF as background image for XY (pins)?

Based on your own experience, I’d guess not.

[khuslid]

Ok. You seem like quite experienced, so I’ll take that as a no;)
I’ll post it as a Feature request then…
Would be very handy for floor plans and similar drawings. They are always in pdf…

[Steve]

The problem (I imagine) is that PDFs don’t have a fixed size, so the plotting measurements used for XY columns don’t work.

XY column points are plotted as a percentage of the image dimensions, but a PDF doesn’t have fixed dimensions, I don’t think.

My guess.

You might try asking support@appsheet.com.

[Fabian_Weller]

I’m using Integromat to convert PDFs in JPGs for further use as XY Background images.
Everything is automated.
Multi page PDFs get seperated in single Images.

Integromat: OCR, Push Notification, Geolocation, and more Tips & Tricks 💡

I want to share a very cool web service to do things you cannot do with AppSheet. Here is a litte Introduce. Here is what I’m doing: [image] If a new PDF file is stored in Google Drive, it does the OCR and sends the Text to my AppSheet App. It also converts the multi page PDF into single JPG files and saves them into Google Drive Subfolder. I can open the JPG files then in my AppSheet App. If a new JPG file gets stored into Google Drive, it’s just doing the OCR and sends the Text to my App…

[Fabian_Weller]

khuslid:

I managed to get the PDF in as background image through generating an URL

Please let us know how did you do that? Step by step please

[khuslid]

Fabian:

Integromat

Hi Fabian.
Sure.
I use google drive, so I just encode the dynamic URL of the google drive PDF to a static URL.
To do so I use this expression in the “Background image” of XY:
CONCATENATE(“https://www.appsheet.com/template/gettablefileurl?appName=“Your app name and number”&tableName=“Your table name”&fileName=”,ENCODEURL(RIGHT(TEXT( [Your column with the PDF from google drive]),LEN(TEXT([Your column with the PDF from google drive]))-11)))
PS: The “-11” is to avoid getting the 11 first typings of the link to the drawing.
My link is to another table where I upload all drawings. This table is called “Tegninger”. So the link generated to this table is then “Tegninger::My_file_pdf/171f13ed…” So the -11 removes “Tegninger::”

But… please explain back how you automaticly made PDF drawings into JPGs. As much details as possible if you can…

[khuslid]

PS: Note that the file is no longer secure after this. I tried. When generating static URL, the new url is public on internet. (But of course hard to find…)

[Fabian_Weller]

@khuslid I now learned that we can use PDF files as background images. Thank you

[Fabian_Weller]

khuslid:

But… please explain back how you automaticly made PDF drawings into JPGs. As much details as possible if you can…

I try to explain here

Integromat: OCR, Push Notification, Geolocation, and more Tips & Tricks 💡

Converting PDF into JPG with Integromat [image]

[hugheshilton]

So just to post an update on this issue since it was solved through support. Previously when you wanted an app image to be the background image for an XY column, you needed to construct the URL to https://www.appsheet.com/template/gettablefileurl with your app name, table name, file name, etc.

There has been a recent change to start constructing full, signed URLs for image and file column values for security before they are passed back to the client. This means that for XY columns you no longer need to construct the full URL for the background image. Instead, you can now just reference or de-reference to the image column. This is what fixed the issue in this case.

[Grant_Stead]

Hi @hugheshilton We dropped a support email earlier, but we’re experiencing low image quality when applying this method.

[khuslid]

Great improvment. Thanks:)

[Fabian_Weller]

That’s cool. Thank you for that improvement. That’s way easier AND more secure.
As @Grant_Stead mentioned, the image quality is low.
If you use PDF file, it’s somehow distorted / warped.
You need at least one forced sync.
Here is a demonstration

EDIT: You can even upload a SVG file and use it as the Background Image for XY. But if you zoom in and out it is duplicating itself.

[khuslid]

Great video @Fabian. Thanks!

[Uffe_Norspang]

what is worse than it is cropping the edges is that it also “fold” on the middle when using PDF, but yes great video

[Aleksi]

For all of you… We made a fix for this and it should go into production today. Using word from Hughes… “No more blurry map images anymore”.

[Fabian_Weller]

@Aleksi @hugheshilton
Images are no more blurry. Thank you for that.
PDF still get cut off and are rendered wrong when you zoom in and out.
SVGs are still rendered endlessly.

Can you confirm my statement in my Video that we need 2 syncs before we can set a Pin on an Image we load up?

[Grant_Stead]

To me it seems like it’s just getting lucky with the PDF and using the thumbnail preview of the PDF somehow… But it will be good to hear what Appsheet thinks, especially like what would happen with multipage PDF?