ryan osmun Posted February 19, 2013 Share Posted February 19, 2013 i trace about 40 pools a day into autocad. i use a calcomp drawing board. im wondering is there a way to put the pdf image directly into CAD so that i can just trace it directly in CAD? this would save an enormous amount of time if any one knows any way i could make something like this possible. im using cad2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted February 19, 2013 Share Posted February 19, 2013 Look at the IMAGEATTACH command. It might help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryan osmun Posted February 19, 2013 Author Share Posted February 19, 2013 that works exactly how i want it to, the only thing is that it accepts just image files, for some reason it will not open a pdf? any ideas on how to get it to open pdf? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted February 19, 2013 Share Posted February 19, 2013 I can't recall but isn't there a PDFATTACH command as well? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryan osmun Posted February 19, 2013 Author Share Posted February 19, 2013 youre right and that worked perfect! thank you for the quick help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGAL Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 Drag and drop auto starts PDFATTACH also Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danellis Posted February 20, 2013 Share Posted February 20, 2013 The ATTACH command combines the two, so a single command can attach both images and PDFs. dJE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana W Posted February 21, 2013 Share Posted February 21, 2013 I find it quite tedious tracing a pdf on screen. I'd much rather use a digitizer for the task, and probably quite a bit more accurate too. I miss my 60" x 96" Calcomp digitizer table I used back in the stone age, circa 1981. The biggest problem I have with pdfs or images to trace in AutoCad is the scaling issue. It takes the better part of half an hour to get it anything close to accurate. At least with a digitizer, one is usually dealing with a known scale factor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryan osmun Posted February 21, 2013 Author Share Posted February 21, 2013 I find it quite tedious tracing a pdf on screen. I'd much rather use a digitizer for the task, and probably quite a bit more accurate too. I miss my 60" x 96" Calcomp digitizer table I used back in the stone age, circa 1981. The biggest problem I have with pdfs or images to trace in AutoCad is the scaling issue. It takes the better part of half an hour to get it anything close to accurate. At least with a digitizer, one is usually dealing with a known scale factor. Actually only takes me a second to scale. Ive been using it now for a day i find this way much easier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TKall Posted February 21, 2013 Share Posted February 21, 2013 Wow, that's handy. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzframpton Posted February 21, 2013 Share Posted February 21, 2013 I've used Revit for pool design and found it very fun, actually. Super easy too. Linked below is the bound PDF of some preliminary designs I made for our marketing team when we interviewed with the city for the job. If you feel it is something you'd be interested in, maybe Revit might be in the future for you? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4989089/Images/cadtutor/2013-02-21/Galveston%20Pool%20-%20Final.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryan osmun Posted February 21, 2013 Author Share Posted February 21, 2013 ok so the scaling wasnt as correct as i thought...im scaling only in one direction...does any one know how to scale both the X and Y axis separately? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted February 21, 2013 Share Posted February 21, 2013 You would have to create a block and upon insertion you would have the option to set the scale of X, Y, and Z to something other than uniform. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryan osmun Posted February 21, 2013 Author Share Posted February 21, 2013 I've used Revit for pool design and found it very fun, actually. Super easy too. Linked below is the bound PDF of some preliminary designs I made for our marketing team when we interviewed with the city for the job. If you feel it is something you'd be interested in, maybe Revit might be in the future for you? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4989089/Images/cadtutor/2013-02-21/Galveston%20Pool%20-%20Final.pdf im not actually designing pools, i draw the pool from a fax or a pdf that has been sent in to me. i then design pop up cleaning heads in the pool. so im not sure this would be software for me unfortunately Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzframpton Posted February 21, 2013 Share Posted February 21, 2013 im not actually designing pools, i draw the pool from a fax or a pdf that has been sent in to me. i then design pop up cleaning heads in the pool. so im not sure this would be software for me unfortunately Oh okay, makes sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana W Posted February 21, 2013 Share Posted February 21, 2013 Actually only takes me a second to scale. Ive been using it now for a day i find this way much easier It may be that the pdfattach or whatever you used is inserting the document at full size. That's a good starting point IF the drawing on the doc is to a scale. my 2009 LT won't let me do it that way, so I have to convert the pdf to an image file first, and that resizes the thing unless I want a file of several megabytes to deal with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryan osmun Posted February 22, 2013 Author Share Posted February 22, 2013 You would have to create a block and upon insertion you would have the option to set the scale of X, Y, and Z to something other than uniform. is there a way that i can turn off the aspect ratio, so that i can scale in two directions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 There is no "aspect ratio" to turn off. You create a block. Next you insert the block. Upon doing so you have the option to change the scale in all three directions (X, Y and Z). The default of course is typically a uniform scale. You can override this. However, keep in mind, that you are now working with a block. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGAL Posted February 23, 2013 Share Posted February 23, 2013 We occasionally redraw a pdf the one thing we do is scale as normal but for curves we use true measurement of plan rather than guess or 3pt, genrally its to do with roads so we check on-site widths etc to make a bit more accurate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrav8r2 Posted November 12, 2015 Share Posted November 12, 2015 I've used Revit for pool design and found it very fun, actually. Super easy too. Linked below is the bound PDF of some preliminary designs I made for our marketing team when we interviewed with the city for the job. If you feel it is something you'd be interested in, maybe Revit might be in the future for you? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4989089/Images/cadtutor/2013-02-21/Galveston%20Pool%20-%20Final.pdf tzframpton, Do you use Revit in this fashion to do any pool wall detailing? Perhaps a structural question I'm sure. This is along the lines of what I want to incorporate into my offerings. Thanks in advance for any dialogue. .KEB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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