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Daryl Edmonds

Images in Descendant box chart

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Last year, for a family reunion, I printed out a descendant box chart, complete with thumbnail photos of most of the 100+ people on the chart. Yesterday I tried to do the same thing, with another branch of the family, but was unsuccessful. The odd thing was that five or six photos appeared but there should have been a lot more. When checking the same people in TMG the photos appear in the exhibits window, as expected, but don't transfer to the charts.

 

I can't find any settings under the "image" tab in the chart options that would help.

 

The only difference that I can think of is that I had to re-format my computer last June, which was after the last project, and after I installed from my v6 CD, I downloaded the update of the UK version from TMG website. The splash screen says I have Gold UK Edition, v6.07.00.

 

Anyone know where I'm going wrong, or if I am?

Daryl

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I have had this experience also, a long while ago. I never worked out the actual reason.

 

The impotant factors at the time seemed to be that it was a W98 computer, there many images to be output in the chart, the images had not been down-sampled before they were attached in TMG. I think that this an effect of having large numbers of pixels per image, many images and little available memory. It could also be a quirk in the way some image format variants are decoded by the display routines in VCF.

 

As a test of the last point, open VCF on a blank canvas and try to add (from toolbar button) an image that does get seen to a chart. If it comes out on its own the file format is OK for VCF.

 

Remember that it is the uncompressed size of an image that gorerns the size of the output .VC2 file or what is finally sent to the printer. Some I have found that an image does not appear on the screen but prints OK and vice versa.

 

I don't think that this a VCF bug, but a limitation associated with the installation / resources of the current computer. Try the operation on another computer and it may well work.

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Thanks for the reply, Robin.

 

I don't think it's a lack of computer power as I'm using an AMD Athlon 3600+ with 1gig RAM and a good graphics card, running Windows XP. If I get time I'll play around with it on the weekend and see if I can get it working. Will keep the forum posted on the results.

 

Cheers, Daryl.

Edited by daryl edmonds

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Ok, in principle your reources should be sufficient. However, it may still either be the format of the images or their total expanded size that hits some internal limit. I have found that down-sampling of primary "passport" images for charts can reduce the images to about 300 *450 without noticable loss in print quality at the normal chart printing size. But then you can't have another primary image for a full page of the same person in a book without a lot of fiddling or custom tags.

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Ok, in principle your reources should be sufficient. However, it may still either be the format of the images or their total expanded size that hits some internal limit. I have found that down-sampling of primary "passport" images for charts can reduce the images to about 300 *450 without noticable loss in print quality at the normal chart printing size. But then you can't have another primary image for a full page of the same person in a book without a lot of fiddling or custom tags.

 

Have you merged databases?

 

When I did so, several years ago, images originating from data set 1 woked fine with VCF. Images originating from data set 2 did not work with VCF even though the image definition looked perfect in the exhibit window and log details, including the primary designation check. After many "easy way" attempts, the only known fix was to individually and manually redefine each image originating from data set 2. If desired, delete the old non-working images.

 

If this is your problem the data set 2 originating images will not work with VCF ancestry or hourglass charts, either.

 

This merge problem was still not fixed a few months ago since someone else reported this same problem on the TMG V6 forum.

 

Sorry for the late reply. I didn't know VCF had a separate forum (not a good plan) until today. VCF is what sets TMG above other genealogy programs.

 

Good luck,

Mike Talbot

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Sorry for the late reply. I didn't know VCF had a separate forum (not a good plan) until today. VCF is what sets TMG above other genealogy programs.

 

Good luck,

Mike Talbot

 

Probably a separate forum because it's used in other versions, but anyone reading only a forum specific to their version will miss the messages here.

 

I agree that VCF helps set TMG above other genealogy programs. I'd like to see more discussion, examples, tips - and this would be the place for it since you can upload screenshots.

 

Virginia

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I am having the same problem on a machine with 4 GB of memory; I do not think that resource shortage is the problem.

I'd sure like to see a solution!

 

Good wishes to all

 

 

formerprof

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I am having the same problem on a machine with 4 GB of memory; I do not think that resource shortage is the problem.

I'd sure like to see a solution!

 

Good wishes to all

formerprof

 

Are you not getting any exhibits at all or are some missing? If missing, have you tried inserting one of the missing images into a chart using the icon on the VCF toolbar to determine if it is an image format that VCF is having a problem with? Do you get the exhibits if you make the chart with just 2 generations? Do the same exhibits appear properly in a Family Group Sheet?

 

Virginia

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I'm fairly new to TMG and I've been really happy with it until last week when the images I had attached to my ancestors details stopped appearing on the charts. I have 6/7 generations and only 4-6 photos now appear where before I had about 40. I've searched the programme and the related website and can find no help. My version is the Silver edition but it's only a about 4/5 weeks since I bought it. My pc is about 6 months old and I have Windows XP so I'm sure it's not my equipment. As this seems to be a problem a few people are experiencing I think it's a software problem.

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Whatever is going on is a complete mystery to me based on the explanations above. Try the following...

 

1) Remove the current thumbnails. They get in the way of seeing what is happening.

 

File / Preferences / Current Project Options / Advanced / unselect 'Save image thumbnails'

 

Click [OK] to save Preferences

 

File / Maintenance / Optimize

 

2) Open the Exhibit Log

 

Set the focus to 'All Exhibits'

 

Now you can see if any exhibits are missing. If so...

 

3) File / Maintenance / Validate File Integrity

 

Check the 'Search for missing external exhibits'

 

(You see that I'm assuming the exhibits of concern are external exhibits.)

 

Click [specify the folders to search...]

 

Add all folder paths where the exhibits are located to search. Save the list and complete the VFI run.

 

(Caution! Don't do this if you have exhibits with the same filename in different folders (bad practice). Running the exhibit tool will make a big mess.)

 

Did this fix the problem? If not, explain the results.

 

The Last VFI.log in the project folder will show the results of the exhibit search (near the top of the log text).

 

After repairing the exhibit paths, you can go to Preferences and turn thumbnails back on.

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