From a QCAD user:
When I open a DXF drawing that has images in it, the images no longer show up. What happened?
The DXF format (and the DWG format) don’t store images inside the drawing file. The drawing file simply references (or links to) the images on disk.
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Let’s say you insert an image “myimage.jpg” from your Desktop into your drawing.
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The image shows up in your drawing for as long as that exact file exists. If you delete that image file from your Desktop, it will no longer show up in any of your drawings where it was inserted.
Note that even if the image files are deleted, the drawing file still contains and keeps the link to the image file. It can just no longer display the image. If you put the image file back, it will show up again when the drawing is (re-)loaded.
It is strongly recommended to put all images of a drawing into the same project folder as the drawing itself. This way the images can always be found, you won’t delete them accidentally and you will always know that these images and the drawing file belong together.
Example:
- Folder “myproject1” may contain:
- myproject1.dxf
- myimage1.jpg
- myimage2.jpg
- …