Docs and helpPortal settings
Room photos & work area: the sign in a real space
Background photos in which your customer sees their sign hanging — and why the size is right.
Background photos in which your customer can view their design: a living room, a bar, a shop front. This is the part that makes the biggest difference in whether someone dares to order — a neon sign on a white page says nothing, a neon sign above a sofa says everything.
You manage them in your portal on the Settings tab, in the Appearance section under Preview-achtergronden (preview backgrounds). The field names there are in Dutch, also in the English portal; below you will find each one as the portal shows it. Every photo in the Achtergrond-foto’s (background photos) list is a row of its own, with everything that belongs to that photo.
Adding a photo
- Click Add photo. The new row gets an id straight away (
foto-1,foto-2, …) and an empty name. - Drag your photo into the upload block, or choose it: JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 4 MB. Is it larger, save it smaller; 2000 pixels wide is plenty. You can also paste a link under Or paste a link to your photo.
- Once the photo has loaded, you set the work area: drag the area to where the sign goes, and make it larger or smaller with the bottom-right corner.
- Fill in the Naam (name) and the Muurbreedte (cm) (wall width), and if you like the Gloedsterkte (glow strength) and the Plaatsing (placement).
- Click Save appearance. Only then is the photo in your configurator: uploading alone changes nothing yet.
You remove a photo with the button below its row (for a photo named Living room it reads Remove Living room), and then you save.
Per photo
| Field | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Id | A short fixed code. A new photo gets one by itself; the Standaard-achtergrond (default background) points to it |
| Naam (name) | The name your customer reads (“Living room”) |
| Foto (photo) | Upload (JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 4 MB) or paste a link |
| Muurbreedte (cm) (wall width) | How wide that wall really is — 10 to 2000 cm |
| Werkgebied op de foto (px) (work area on the photo) | The rectangle where the sign will hang; you set it with the area on the photo |
| Fotobreedte (px) and Fotohoogte (px) (photo width and height) | The dimensions of the photo. The portal reads them from the photo itself; you only see them |
| Gloedsterkte (glow strength) | How strongly the sign shines on the wall, from 0 to 1 |
| Plaatsing (placement) | Op ware schaal (aanbevolen) (true to scale, recommended) or Vullend — grootst passend (fill, largest fit) |
A link instead of an upload
A pasted link must be a full https address (it starts with https://), and
the photo must be open to everyone. A path without an address in front, such as
/room.jpg, is refused by the portal when you save: your configurator would
look for that photo on its own address and not find it.
If the portal cannot load the photo, it says so, and you cannot set a work area yet. Check the link, or upload the photo.
The work area
The work area is the rectangle in which the sign appears, in pixels of the photo itself. Without a work area the preview cannot place the sign anywhere.
You set it with the area on the photo: drag to move it, use the bottom-right corner to make it larger or smaller. The keyboard works too: Tab to the area and move it with the arrow keys (with Shift in larger steps), or Tab to the corner and make it wider, narrower, taller or shorter with the arrow keys. Plus and minus zoom in and out. The numbers below the photo follow from the area and the photo itself; you do not type them.
A new photo starts with an area slightly above the middle, because that is where a sign usually hangs. Replace the photo of a row and the work area moves along to the new photo in proportion. Check it afterwards.
The portal does not rotate the photo. If it is crooked, rotate it before you upload it.
Wall width: why the size is right
This is what makes the size right. If the system knows that wall is 320 cm wide, it can draw an 80 cm sign at the right size. If this is a guess, the proportions are off and your customer thinks they will get something other than what they ordered.
So really measure that wall, or use the width of something whose size you know (a door is usually 83 cm, a sofa 200 to 220 cm).
Glow strength
A number between 0 and 1. At 0 the sign is a flat picture, at 1 it glows fully onto the wall; leave the field empty and it is 1. A dark photo takes that full glow; light, sunny rooms look most real around 0.5 to 0.7.
Placement
Op ware schaal (aanbevolen) (true to scale) uses the wall width: the sign appears on the photo as large as it will really be. Vullend — grootst passend (fill) makes the sign as large as fits in the work area, regardless of its real size. Leave the field empty and it is true to scale.
Default background (Standaard-achtergrond)
Which photo your customer sees first. The Standaard-achtergrond field is in
the same block: fill in the id of one of your photos, for example foto-1.
Empty, or an id that is not in the list, means: no background. If you change a
photo’s id, update this field as well.
What makes a good room photo?
- A calm, even wall. A busy painting or a bookcase behind it makes the sign unreadable.
- Not too bright. Neon shows best against a slightly darker wall — which is also how your customer sees it at home in the evening.
- Straight on. A photo taken at an angle makes the sign look crooked.
- A recognisable space. A living room, a bar or an office sells better than an empty studio wall, because your customer sees themselves in it.
Three to five good photos is enough. More choice does not make it better.