Storing background image + annotation (drawing) as a new image (merge)

[Jack_Borst]

Dear,

I’m wondering if maybe someone has a creative solution in mind.

I’m having a simple test table containing a field called Drawing of the type drawing and a field containing a URL (pointing to a background png image)

This field/column “drawing” has an “initial value” pointing tothea https://www.xxxxxxx.png which is resulting that when the image is shown to the user, the user can draw / annotate on top of this background image.

The drawing field is successfully saved afterwards and an image of the annotation is stored in separate folder as a png file.

But, when opening the record again, only the annotation is shown (not the image in the background layer).

Looking for a solution like:

• Prefered: Save background image + annotation image as a new image
• Alternatively (if above not possible), save the annotation image, but show the same background image again when opening a record for editing

Both of the above, I can’t get to work.

Anybody any suggestions?

Kind regards
Jack

[Suvrutt_Gurjar · Accepted solution]

Please take a look at the below paragraph in the help article

I could use public images hosted on "http:/… " and the background image persisted even after annotation. But I could not use images hosted "https:/ … "- they gave the same problem you described.

I believe the below is the reason. @Fabian : Request your insights.

help.appsheet.com

Capturing Signatures and Drawings

Capturing signatures and drawings is easy with AppSheet.

[Jack_Borst]

Suvrutt,

Tried to solve it with http (in stead of https) and same result.

But… I also tried the 2nd embeded suggestion: I created a additional table “templates” (with an image column included) and when adding a record in the origanal table with drawing field and “initial value” refering to the image of the template table, it works perfect!!
Drawing is stored and shown including background templated.

Thank you so much for your help!

Regards
Jack

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

Thank you for the update @Jack_Borst . Good to know you got it working. Your update on how you got it working will definitely help someone reading this post thread again.

[Fabian_Weller]

Hi @Suvrutt_Gurjar to me https is working.
I use this image as the initial value in a drawing field:

"https://image.flaticon.com/icons/png/128/45/45010.png"

I can then annotate on it.

It will be saved as one png image in my Google Drive.

[Suvrutt_Gurjar]

Oh okay, got it. Thank you very much @Fabian.

I will again try with the approach you have described.

[Eduardo_Rico]

Dear all,

I seem to have the exact opposite problem.

I have a series of images saved in my drive (ie these are not public urls) which I would like to annotate. I would then like the drawing to be stored separately from the background. Is there a way to get the app to “forget” about the background image when saving the drawing?

Yours,

Eduardo

[Fabian_Weller]

Hi @Eduardo_Rico to my knowledge, this is not possible.

[Eduardo_Rico]

Thanks. For the time being, I am linking images to a Pinterest board (ie public) to then reference them. As mentioned above, the annotation comes clear due to “unwanted” conflict, that happens to work for my purposes. It is a very cheap workaround but I think it is what I can work with.