Remind me how to (Autocad)

saobh_ie

I remember being show how to do this and then showing others how to do it in college about four years ago but for the life of me can't remember how to go about scanning a drawing into my computer and import it into autocad in such a manner that it displays each line as a line. It's one of those things that I never had to do anywhere.

I figured of all the websites I'm on this was my best shot. Is it anything to do with Raster images. I've tried searching the acad help files but not being sure what I'm looking for, you know the story there.

Anyhow, if any body knows what I need to be doing if they could post it up... or even hints so I can find it myself. That would be great.

Googling only seems to show up additional software that I can buy to do this for me but there is a simple way that needs nothing more than a image editing program and autocad.

Goes without saying I'll be really grateful etc etc.

Cheers

Edit: The process involved messing around with Adobe's Photoshop or Illustrator, I can not recall which.

les-paul

Don't know much about Autocad (in fact I know nothing) but, as a wild guess, can it be scanning the thing in Photoshop and exporting as DXF (the autocad format)? Maybe you can give it a try.

godtabh

saobh_ie wrote:

I remember being show how to do this and then showing others how to do it in college about four years ago but for the life of me can't remember how to go about scanning a drawing into my computer and import it into autocad in such a manner that it displays each line as a line. It's one of those things that I never had to do anywhere.

I figured of all the websites I'm on this was my best shot. Is it anything to do with Raster images. I've tried searching the acad help files but not being sure what I'm looking for, you know the story there.

Anyhow, if any body knows what I need to be doing if they could post it up... or even hints so I can find it myself. That would be great.

Googling only seems to show up additional software that I can buy to do this for me but there is a simple way that needs nothing more than a image editing program and autocad.

Goes without saying I'll be really grateful etc etc.

Cheers

Edit: The process involved messing around with Adobe's Photoshop or Illustrator, I can not recall which.

Didnt realise you could do this. Would it be similar to what happens when you scan in text so that you can edit it?

Would be interested in knowing how to do it myself.

Maybe you should post in the computer section?

saobh_ie

Typically computer people know squat about autoCAD. Well not entirely true.

I tried something with EPS files, didn't see DXF in the adobe packages, or if I did it didn't work.

The job is made more difficult given that all the Adobe stuff is on my machine at home and all the AutoCAD stuff is here in work. I'll keep messing around anyway and if I figure it out I'll let you know.

dave2pvd

I've not seen this done. If photoshop can export dxf though, that's what I'd try.

Keep in mind that AutoCAD is going to see either 'nurbs' or a poor translation of the scanned drawing with dimensional and relational properties all messed up...

Johnniep

You could use a program like Wintopo or some other Raster to Vector program. Have a look here:

http://wintopo.com/

Mellor

If you import a JPEG or similar in autocad you see just a picture.
If you import a METAFILE image. Autocad displays it as lines, and polylines.
For example clipart images are often metafiles and can be imported to cad.
Thats the most common way. Adobe programs, and rater to vector image convertors have a metafile option.
But you might need to convert it to a B&W (not gray scale) to get the best results.

saobh_ie

Thanks guys,

I ended up just importing it as a JPEG, tracing a line over part of it and scaling it that way.

If I get some time during lunch today I'll give the metafile thing a shot when I get home tonight thought, just to see if I can get it to work for furture reference but it sounds like it will do the job.

Thanks.