Getting a White Rectangle Instead of an Image upon Reload.

[Student56]

Greetings Everyone,

 

Background:

I'm a student at UCF working on a senior design project. Our school's computer lab uses AutoCAD 2008, and I'm running a Trial Version of AutoCAD 2009 on my laptop.

 

Our project this semester is to design a subdivision on a 355 acre site.

 

My Problem:

Last week our professor gave us a topographical map of the existing site. Unfortunately it's a PDF, which means I need to transfer the contours into AutoCAD.

 

No problem so far, I've done this before. Cut and paste the image into AutoCAD, and then trace over it. Should be easy enough, right?

 

Wrong.

 

I'll paste the image into AutoCAD, and then start tracing over it. However, if I exit AutoCAD and reload the same document, the image is gone. All that appears is a white rectangle. Ok, so let's just take the same image and paste it into AutoCAD again, line it up with the old image, and we should be good to go again right?

 

Wrong again.

 

If I take the SAME image and try to paste it into AutoCAD again, the Height-Width ratio is SLIGHTLY different! It's the same image... but the scale is different so none of the contour lines match up. Even if I go to Properties and turn off "Lock Aspect Ratio" and stretch the new image to the same dimensions as the old one, the lines don't match up. I'm completely stumped why this should happen....

 

 

So what exactly do I want to know?

What do I need to do to stop this image from turning into a white rectangle every time I restart AutoCAD?

 

Things I've tried so far:

• The images are in the same folder as the AutoCAD file.
  
• The images are quite large, about 45 MB, but I need this resolution in order to see the contour lines clearly.
  
• Using Xrefs is a no-go. Whenever I use an xref, it inserts as a Raster Image which means I lose a lot of resolution, and the contours which I'm trying to trace are too blurry.
  
• This problem occurs if I insert the image as a Static OLE object or an Embedded OLE object (I've tried both).
  
• These problems happen no matter what layer I put the image in. I've used the 0 layer, and tried using a custom layer.
  
• It doesn't matter what filetype the image is. I've tried PNG, TIFF, BMP, JPEG, nothing makes a difference. Getting the same problem every time.

 

I'm completely stumped here. Tracing these contours is going to take days as-is, but fighting these technical problems in AutoCAD are complicating things so that I'm spending more time dealing with the software problems than actually doing my work.

 

If anyone has any suggestions (no matter how basic) I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Thank you,

Student56

[cpriedel]

Did you tried double-clicking the rectangle (image). By doing so the "Adjust Image" Window should pop up. Click on "reset". See if that works.

I had the same problem with Images in a Titelblock we got from an other office. So i had to reload the images and reset them every time i inserted the TB into a new sheet. Really annoying but thats the only thing i can think of

[Student56]

Thanks for the idea, but when I double-click the image it just brings up the properties window, and there's no reset option there.

 

Using the REA command (Regen All) has no effect.

[cpriedel]

yeah sorry i have no experiance with inserting pdf.s into Autocad was hoping its the same as image

GL though. Hope someone else can help you

[ZakTay]

Save the PDF as a JPG

Save the JPG in the same folder at the drawing

Drag the jpg into the drawing

If the connection breaks (it shouldn't) then type in xr (xref)

and it will have the image shown as detached or not found... re locate the connection and you should be good.

tell me if it works. if not send me the pdf.

[AVITWeb]

If you have Adobe Acrobat 8 installed on your machine, it should show the image. if you have the ability, try that and see if that helps.