It feels unexpected that Images can be imported and placed in 3D Modelling mode, but then just vanish in the Visualisation mode, where I had expected everything to appear, in greater quality. The first few times I tried this, I thought it was a bug, or I had something toggled off, but then saw community posts here asking about it in 2022: [1] [2] [3] [4]
The problem that this feature will solve:
- contextual ‘flavour’ background objects such as my carpet below
- creating framed paintings on walls, where it’s useful that the image match reality, but I don’t want to recreate an oil painting in CAD
- complex artwork applied on designs, e.g. like logos applied on a curved drinking mug, or for representing silkscreening on keyboards
- adding corporate logos to 2D drawings
- reviewing/annotating CAD designs with emoji, arrows, etc
- more visually interesting and useful designs in general, especially with Shapr3D supporting USDZ export, and rumoured upcoming extended-reality hardware releases
All places where a visual design needn’t or shouldn’t be part of the CAD design, but are useful, desirable, or even essential.
Consider adding screenshots and as many details as possible, to help the Shapr3D team and the community understand why you need this feature. Describing your workflow helps us building the right feature.
My personal immediate use case: I’m modelling a piece of furniture this morning, and for scale have added some “typical room” objects, like a sofa. (This is critically important Spouse Acceptance Factor Workflow. 
) The ‘ground plane’ in Visualisation was very flat and felt weird, so I grabbed a jpeg of a carpet from IKEA, converted it to a PNG with a transparent background, and imported it into Shapr3D. The result:
https://i.imgur.com/xMU9gW6.mp4
This weekend I intend to try modelling a photo frame, experimenting with using different table router angled bit cuts in a timber frame. Basically just a negative extrusion of the bit’s profile shape. It would be nice to be able to place photographs within the frame to get a better sense of how the finished products may look in use.
Brief description of the outcomes that you expect from this feature:
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Visualization mode would render imported flat Images in much the same manner as 3D Modelling mode, but with better lighting etc etc as suitable and appropriate. These are the Images that are already being rendered in a different mode.
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Mapping Images to Objects seems like a much bigger ask, harder to get the UI/UX right in a touch-first paradigm, requires choices and technical additions.
What can’t you achieve without this feature?
Nice looking, textured and rendered Visualizations which include complex raster images.
For some of the use cases, I can throw together a 3D design that mimics simpler raster images. But this is unnecessarily time-consuming. For more complex images I cannot.
Is this a workflow blocker for you? Is this why you can’t use Shapr3D for work? Is this slowing you down?
For myself it is not yet a workflow blocker. It feels like a minor feature, that would be very nice to have, that I am surprised is not already present. I hope you would consider adding it to your development roadmap.
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And as a final note: thank-you for all your efforts on Shapr3D, I love your work and can’t wait to see what’s ahead!
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