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Using Autocad for website design drafting


samifox

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ive got a weird question.

 

im designing websites as well, i wanna use Autocad for drafting purposes.

 

how much margin, padding, etc.

 

the problem is that Autocad(as far as i know, im only beginner) doesn't know what pixels are for that matter.

 

when i use Milliliter for units, the drawing is so large Autocad cant even zoom it out.

 

so, actually i have tow questions,

 

1. how to set the unit system to pixel or what are my best alternatives?

2. why Autocad complain that i zoom in or out too much? i thought it was infinite or perspective to the drawing.

 

Thanks

Shay

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To answer question 2, autocad will only zoom as much as the LIMITS you define, until a REGEN command is invoked.

 

If you type LIMITS at the command line, you can set how big the viewing area is. default is inches...

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Well AC cannot use pixels but you can always bring your DWGs into Adobe Illustrator and scale to your hearts desire in pixels.

 

im not using AC for designing a website, i want to use it for drafting purposes only, meaning instead of using a pencil and paper to draw the dimension and location of each portion ill use AC.

 

To answer question 2, autocad will only zoom as much as the LIMITS you define, until a REGEN command is invoked.

 

If you type LIMITS at the command line, you can set how big the viewing area is. default is inches...

 

the "regen" command made the trick. thanks

 

:o That's a first. Autocad for website design? Why wouldn't you use web designing software?

 

Use the right tool for the job. :thumbsup:

 

im not using AC for designing a website, i want to use it for drafting purposes only, meaning instead of using a pencil and paper to draw the dimension and location of each portion ill use AC.

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  • 6 years later...

I too thought of this concept. Not too sure if it is practical though. You would have to export the layout into an external program to get the scaling reasonably corrected. It can be done, but it may be time consuming. Kind of like using a tiny flat head screw driver on a large fillips screw. it can be done, but a large fillips driver works much better.

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the problem is that Autocad(as far as i know, im only beginner) doesn't know what pixels are for that matter.

...

1. how to set the unit system to pixel or what are my best alternatives?

 

Technically, the units AutoCAD uses are agnostic, that is, distances don't depend on your measurement system. The confusion comes in when you have to convert inches to feet, millimeters to centimeters, and so on. In other words, there's no reason you couldn't lay out a web page in a drawing, as long as you use whole units and keep your scale consistent.

 

My question is, why? You can't export a drawing into HTML (as far as I know), so you're duplicating effort. Once you finish the drawing, you have to create the site from scratch. Still, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

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Actually, the variable "screensize" gives the pixel sizes of available drawing area (so minus docked toolpalettes, menus ribbon etc.

If you draw a rectangle the same number of units that screensize reports (and offset by a bit inside the rectangle - for me it's offset 3 units, but it might depend on systems) then run the zoom command with the option Object, picking the inner rectangle, you should see your original rectangle outlining the very edge of your usable screen (if the offset isn't quite right you will see which way it needs altering.

So long as you now draw in this boundary then run either "wmfout" or "pngout" or "bmpout" and select everything using those screen coordinates then that is exactly what you get, all 3 of those commands make a screen shot of the working screen.

 

You can, of course, scale the whole thing up or down if needed and keep everything in those proportions.

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... You can't export a drawing into HTML (as far as I know), so you're duplicating effort. ....

 

Well you can convert a DWG to an SVG which most, if not all modern web browsers can read. Just saying ;)

 

https://cloudconvert.com/dwg-to-svg

 

Not too hard to add some pan and zoom controls on a hosting site/page.

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If you use the plot to jpeg option to make an image then you can control the pixel ratio or DPI by tricking Autocad into working at higher resolutions by making custom sheet sizes and using fit. We did this previously for TIFFS by working backwards on the title block size in pixels at 200DPI to ensure quality but not huge file size. 6330x4440

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sounds like wire diagraming the layout. I’ve never used AC for that. Might be on to something.

 

I use Omnigraffle (mac) or Visio (win).

Post up some screen shots when you get a chance.

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