Tracing drawings

[Nick-H-]

I want to scan some drawings, the open them in CAD and Trace over the top of them.

 

How do i go about doing this?

 

Nick

[Tiger]

You scan some drawings, the open them in CAD and Trace over the top of them.

 

:wink:

 

But seriously, I dunno how to explain it better than you did yourself...how I do it is either scan the drawing as PDF or TIFF (TIFF if I get to choose), Import it into Autocad, use the SCALE command to get it to correct scale (hopeing there's a ruler/scale on the drawing that I can use, otherwise I use a doorway for example), then I start drawing lines over the PDF/TIFF. Use Send to Back (mark the image and right-click to find it) if your lines end up behind the image.

[Nick-H-]

You scan some drawings, the open them in CAD and Trace over the top of them.

 

:wink:

 

But seriously, I dunno how to explain it better than you did yourself...how I do it is either scan the drawing as PDF or TIFF (TIFF if I get to choose), Import it into Autocad, use the SCALE command to get it to correct scale (hopeing there's a ruler/scale on the drawing that I can use, otherwise I use a doorway for example), then I start drawing lines over the PDF/TIFF. Use Send to Back (mark the image and right-click to find it) if your lines end up behind the image.

 

Is there anyway of fading the scan

[ReMark]

In the past I've traced over drawings using a digitizer and a puck (like a mouse only this one has crosshairs and 16 buttons).

[Tiger]

Is there anyway of fading the scan

 

not that I know of, could be if you fiddle with the image in Photoshop or something beforehand...

[eldon]

If you get the image scanned and saved in TIFF format, then the image takes on the colour of the layer it is inserted to.

 

Picture shows old survey in red, and I turned all other layers to black to show the difference.

[Nick-H-]

nice, thats what i want - just need to get it to scale once its scanned in

[Tiger]

nice, thats what i want - just need to get it to scale once its scanned in

 

SCALE -> REFERENCE

[Nick-H-]

SCALE -> REFERENCE

 

What does that do?

 

and how do you do it

[chelsea1307]

start the scale command, pick your base point, type r enter, select your initial base point then another point that you know what the final distance should be then enter that distance or pick that point

[Nick-H-]

so if i know the depth of a wall on a drawing is 300mm i can use that

[chelsea1307]

:Dexactly:D

[Tankman]

Is there anyway of fading the scan?

 

Send the image or scan to the background and use a nice bright color when tracing.

 

After you're done delete the image, change your colors as you wish.

 

I like using Adobe Pro which gives me the ability to take "SNAPSHOTS" of any part (or all) and insert into a blank drawing.

 

I always "SCALE" the image before tracing.

 

You might also consider a digitizer if you're goin' to be doing a lot of this type of project.

[Nick-H-]

Send the image or scan to the background and use a nice bright color when tracing.

 

After you're done delete the image, change your colors as you wish.

 

I like using Adobe Pro which gives me the ability to take "SNAPSHOTS" of any part (or all) and insert into a blank drawing.

 

I always "SCALE" the image before tracing.

 

You might also consider a digitizer if you're goin' to be doing a lot of this type of project.

 

Its just a sketch of a house someone wants me to draw up in cad, but ive not got time to sit there measuring it, so im just going to trace it and tidy it up

[Bogbadbob658]

Have you tried Win Topo? It's a simple raster to vector program. There is a freeware version which seems to work well. It's a lot faster than tracing. Of course it does mean that non of the lines are parallel and a lot depends upon the quality of the scan.

[Chase Andrews]

if the drawing is not too complex, the fastest way to do this is with a digitizer and software like Paper2Cad