Drag & Drop Reference Images

17 votes
Date Updated: 
09/11/2012

For modeling in 3ds Max I like to use image planes textured with reference images of my object. Not only for blueprints, but even any reference, because on my laptop screen space is very limited and this way I don't have to switch between applications, just move my view a little. Setting up those planes is annoying, because you would have to create a material for each and then a plane with the right aspect ratio. This script automates all this, by giving you a little window where you can drag and drop any common image type onto. The reference planes will then be created on a line and you can specifiy whether to align height/width of all images. You can also choose a material type and the gamma value that the images are loaded with.

22/08/13: Added scaling option for planes; Script now remembers its settings

03/01/13: Set plane segments to 1 on creation

05/12/12: Removed axis checkboxes, added option to align width or length of the planes, updated image, tightened UI

18/11/12: Removed self-illumination from Standard material. which made things too bright (thanks to DeaDog)

13/10/12: Added option to choose the material type (mr arch&design, standard & vraymtl)

06/10/12: Disabled Real World Scale for maps, added Gamma correction option using a color correction map (thanks to miauu, Kinofaya)

29/09/2012: UI checkbutton fix, thanks to Anubis

27/09/2012: Now recreates image from Base64 string (method by LoneRobot.net, thanks to barigazy); now uses "maxOps.canImportBitmap" thanks to Anubis

Explanatory video:

Video URL: 

Comments

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Marsman's picture

Thank you!

Thank you!

subfeel's picture
samehbijo's picture

This link is dead

I need this script but the link is dead

Sameh Bijo
3d Generalist

klim3d's picture

Oh, thank you very much!)

Oh, thank you very much!)

titane357's picture
klim3d's picture

Does anyone have this script?

Hi. The site does not work. Does anyone have this script?

jahman's picture

checked

Hi,
thanks for the code.
it showing an error. can you check please.

I guess jah.getDotNetImage is the cause of an error since it is my custom function. Replace it with your method that will return System.Drawing.Image from given filepath and it will work as expected.

zahid hasan's picture

"jah"

Hi,
thanks for the code.
it showing an error. can you check please.

jahman's picture

.

You should really download and check script sources :)

try (destroydialog X ) catch ()
rollout X "" width:132 height:150 (
 
	label tt "Drop Image Here"
	dotNetControl c "picturebox" pos:[2,20] width:128 height:128
 
	on x open do c.allowDrop = true
 
	on c DragOver sender e do (
 
		e.Effect = if e.data.ContainsFileDropList() then e.Effect.Move else e.Effect.None
 
	)
	on c DragDrop sender e do (
 
		if e.data.ContainsFileDropList() do (
 
			data = e.data.GetFileDropList()
			files = for k=0 to data.count-1 collect data.item[k]
 
			for f in files where doesFileExist f and maxOps.canImportBitmap f do (
 
				c.image = jah.getDotNetImage f width:128 height:128 -- create "system.drawing.image" from filename
 
			)
 
		)
 
	)
 
)
createDialog X
n3m0's picture

about script

hi!

nice script i was curious about how you coded the drag and drop part of it as it could be useful for another script i want to make
could you give some insight?

thanks!

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