Two different pictures
ZeroCount has two features that both involve an image, and they are easy to confuse:
- A Detection group's thumbnail is cut from the drawing itself. It is the example symbol the group was built from, shown beside the group's name and again on every detection card. You refresh it from the drawing; you do not upload it.
- A Custom Image annotation is a picture you supply, placed on the drawing like any other annotation. It is decoration and context, not a count.
The first tells you what a group is counting. The second puts a logo, a photograph or a revision stamp onto a drawing you are about to export.
The Detection group thumbnail
The image in the first column of a Detection group's row is the group's template — the symbol you outlined when you created it. Clicking it opens the group's appearance popover, where the same image appears in the preview with the marker box drawn around it.
A few things to know about it:
- Groups created empty, from Actions then Add Group , have no template yet and show a placeholder until you run Detect New Symbol on them.
- A +N badge over the thumbnail means the group holds more than one example — from a second Detect New Symbol, or from another group merged into it. The preview slider in the appearance popover pages through them.
- Every individual detection card carries its own picture, cut from wherever that copy sits on the drawing. That is why cards in the same group can look slightly different from each other.
Refreshing a thumbnail from the drawing
Thumbnails are cut from the area a marker box covers. Move or resize a box and the picture stops matching, so ZeroCount gives you two ways to re-cut it.
One or a few detections:
- 1
Select the detections whose pictures are wrong.
- 2
Right-click one of their cards in the sidebar.
- 3
Choose Reimage Detection(s) . The right-clicked card and the rest of the selection are re-cut.
A whole group:
- 1
Open the menu on the group's row.
- 2
Choose Reimage Group .
- 3
A Reimaging... chip covers the grid while it runs. Every card in the group is re-cut from the drawing.
Reimaging only changes pictures. It does not re-run detection, does not move a marker and does not change a count.
You cannot upload your own picture as a Detection group's thumbnail. The thumbnail always comes from the drawing, which is what makes it a reliable record of what the group actually matched.
Custom Image annotations
A Custom Image is one of the annotation types. Use it for a company revision box, a logo or stamp before sharing a marked-up drawing, or a site photograph dropped onto an as-built.
- 1
Choose Actions then Annotations then Custom Image , or use the dropdown on an existing annotation group.
- 2
Drag a box on the drawing where the image should sit. A dashed placeholder appears and the Set Custom Image dialog opens by itself.
- 3
Click Choose File to pick an image from your computer. It reads "Image loaded" once it is in.
- 4
Or paste a web address into the Image URL field instead, and press Enter.
- 5
Check the Preview, then click Apply Image. The button stays disabled until a preview has loaded.
Once placed, the image behaves like any other marker: drag it to move it, drag a grip to resize it, press DEL to remove it.
To swap the picture later, double-click the image on the drawing, or click Set custom image on its row in the sidebar. Right-clicking the row and choosing Set Image does the same thing.
Like every annotation, a Custom Image is not counted and never reaches the Excel quantities export. It does appear in PNG and PDF exports of the active drawing, which is the whole point of it.
Next steps
- Annotation markers — the other seven annotation types and how to draw each.
- Marker menus — where Reimage and Redetect live.
- Group appearance — the preview slider and the merged-templates badge.
- Exporting drawing images — getting the marked-up drawing out as a PDF.