UNIFI’s Preview Image Customization tool gives you more control over how content appears in UNIFI. Rather than sticking with a default preview image that may not be ideal for you and your team, you can generate, customize, or upload your own. In this article, we will share three different ways that this might come in handy for you.
Customize Preview Image Settings for a Single Category
Perhaps you need to turn around casework items that are still backwards from out of the box. Or maybe you need to show a front view on a door to show swing directions in elevation. The problem you’ll face is that images that contain reference planes, text, or dimensions can mess up thumbnails. Revit only allows changes for this by opening each family, changing view settings, and saving.
A helpful fix is to use UNIFI’s Preview Image Generator to customize that preview image.
Use the On-Screen Image to Capture Unit Groups
Some items that are not system components or saveable families (such as model groups or linkable files for managing housing units for residential projects) don’t automatically generate a preview image, since that would be difficult to capture. But you can use UNIFI’s on-screen image capture option to customize these images.
To do this, when looking at a piece of content in UNIFI, select the Actions menu in the top right of the screen and then select Capture Preview Image.
You’ll then be able to take a screenshot of the image, crop it, and select Finish.
We recommend that you set up a source file to manage changes across these units and use our Batch Export feature to “publish” updates to UNIFI. With the source model open, you can easily capture the preview images on the screen.
Add Custom Images for Rendered Versions or Custom Materials
If you have a rendered version or a custom material, you can upload a preview image for that in UNIFI. Simply click on the Actions menu when viewing the family and select Upload Preview Image.
One tip we recommend: Name the upload preview image the same name as the content it will be an image for. On the upload tab in UNIFI you can upload both the image and content at the same time to update the preview image. This makes it helpful for custom-made images to be applied to numerous files at once on upload.
Conclusion
UNIFI’s Preview Image Customization tool allows you to customize how 2D/3D content, unit groups, renderings, and entire categories appear in UNIFI. This feature helps you quickly identify the content that you need.