Macromedia Freehand plans into Autocad..possible ?

[DBenz]

Hi, I have aircraft plans accurately drawn, (as accurate as 64000x magnification allows) in Macromedia Freehand 9. I am now wishing to continue with Autocad, thinking to the future and what is expected of them by others interested. How easy will it be to bring these front, side and end elevation views into autocad ? I would imagine the layers etc the lines exist on wouldnt correlate to Autocads system, be great if they did, but that would be too good to be true. I dont want to find myself drawing the plans all over again, a lot of work went into the point placements of the vectors, many thousands so far. I am happy with the accuracy of the placement of the nodes/points, of the curves created by pulling tangent lines etc, the program is accurate for full size construction for what we require.
I have layers with *.tiff files carefully scaled (often different % vert to horiz) to marry up to reality, to be able to work to.
I assume such is possible in autocad ?
How will I bring these in ?
What happens to my dimensions, fonts, colours in use to differentiate parts etc. I use cmyk and rgb mixes to give different dimension colours to differentiate between sources of dimensions, theory, actual etc, trustworthiness etc.
Can autocad have access to a myriad of colours by the way to do this ?
What are the do's and dont's, will's and wont's of Macromedia
Freehand into Autocad ?

How best do I go over to using Autocad ?

DBenz

[Cad64]

I believe that Freehand has the ability to Export as DXF? :unsure: If so, give that a try. This will allow you to bring your vector linework into Autocad, but I don't know if your tif files or your text or dimensions will come through? Just give it a shot and see how it goes.



Can autocad have access to a myriad of colours by the way to do this ?

Yes, Autocad has a full color palette, so I don't think you will have to worry about that.


How best do I go over to using Autocad ?

My advice is to get yourself a good book. Autocad is a totally different program than Freehand and you will need to do a fair bit of reading in order to understand how to use it effectively. Check out Amazon.com and you will surely find a book for your version.

[DBenz]

Hi Cad64,
Unfortunately Freehand cannot export as dxf, eps is the best it can do. It was the top of the three vector progs at one time yet its export options lacked autocad foresight. Many use it for private plan drawing, or did... now those that are able to afford autocad ar have plucked up courage to learn such, their plans cannot be exported as dxf. What scope would there be of getting the work into autocad as encapsulated postscript, the other option is eps with tiff preview.
DBenz

[Cad64]

Autocad can create .eps files, but it can't open or import them.
You might want to check out Adobe Illustrator for converting your .eps files to .dwg or .dxf. It's a pretty costly alternative though, (about $600), especially if you will only use it as a conversion program. Maybe there are cheaper programs that you could use to convert to .dxf? :unsure:

You can download a trial version of Illustrator here: adobe.com (http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/?ogn=EN_US-gntray_prod_illustrator_home)

[DBenz]

I have found that illustrator, if memory serves me correctly, couldnt cope with pecked lines, I need to trial it I guess and see what happens regards accuracy and so on. Thanks for the idea.
DBenz