Nice looking 2D floor plans

[silvio raid]

I work as a Graphic Designer at an architect studio and they asked me to take Autocad files and build creative and nice looking 2D Floor plans to show them to the clients.

¿What software do you recomend to use? Because I´ve tried DXF, DWG, etc. in CorelDraw and Freehand and it brings broken lines, and I have to REDRAW everything from scrath!

 

Thanks

Silvio

[Andy Hickes]

Export your drawing from autocad as an "eps" and open in photoshop. You will get a dialoque box asking you for dimensions and resolution and color mode. Choose B/W and try larger and larger resolutions until it opens with crisp clean lines. It will open on a layer and may seem very faint. Duplicate the layer 3 or 4 times and use multiply mode. That will darken the lines.

Then flatten the image.

 

 

Another way to darken the faint image is to flatten the file and use levels or to get strong black lines.

 

Andy hickes

[Andy Hickes]

p.s. Or just open the eps file in Illustrator.

[dennis]

Have you ever tried M-Color?

it's a great add-on to autocad. It's designed to do exactly what you are looking for. I'm a graphic designer working in the A/E field as well and rely on M-Color for many of my 2d graphics.

They have a free 30-day trial version of it as well.

 

http://www.m-color.com/

[the.3dsmax.blogger]

photoshop is my favourite !!!!

[BrianKitts]

I agree with both methods of exporting either a pdf or eps from autocad, and I used to swear by photoshop.... but the more and more I've gotten comfortable with freehand and illustrator both excell for setting up layer controls and global settings for layers such that its easier to make major changes later.

[frank1331]

If Illustrator had a magic wand tool like photoshop it would far superiour, but since it does not, I use photoshop. I never really liked freehand, the learning curve is big once you know the Adobe products.

[Guest nazcaLine]

how can you export from autocad as a .pdf? i have atcad 2004 and i dont see that option.

 

i found .eps and tried but the drawing is very faint. another suggestions?

[AJLynn]

I've had very good results going the PDF the Illustrator route - requires the full version of Acrobat, and you use that as your plotter. However, you end up with some weird effects, compound paths everywhere, lines cut up, etc, which make it hard to work with, so I recommend having the ACAD drawing print in full color with each color corresponding to a line type, then breaking everything up in Illustrator, using select by color and layering everything - don't try to work with individual pieces.

 

If you have CS2, experiment with Live Paint, it makes fills a lot faster.

[BrianKitts]

how can you export from autocad as a .pdf? i have atcad 2004 and i dont see that option.

i found .eps and tried but the drawing is very faint. another suggestions?

 

actually you don't export to pdf.... you have to have acrobat distiller or professional installed. And then you actually plot to pdf, similar to plotting to file, only you set Adobe PDF as your plotter....

[rmaister]

I personally prefer to plot to an eps file. Plots to this file will have line widths, colors and scale. When opening the files in Photoshop, you can select any resolution you might need for the project (web, presentation borads), and the file will always open to with the sheet size and scale you plotted in autocad, and at the resolution you specified.

[silvio raid]

Thanks, I will download it and try it

maybe is what i was looking for as you said!

 

sincerely,

silvio

[silvio raid]

Gracias Eduardo. I will try what you suggest! trateré lo que me dices

 

saludos,

Silvio

[thomas+son]

Plotting to a PDF also gives you Line wieghts, colors, color fills (no shading).

 

Thomas+son

[dennis]

check out M-color. it's definetly a useful program. You can do translucent fills, shading, control lineweight, add "freehand" effects etc etc. Plus since it runs directly with autocad you don't have to export anything. I use photoshop and corel on a daily basis - but when it comes to 2d autocad drawings i always use m-color.

trust me - check it out

http://www.m-color.com/

[Guest nazcaLine]

I personally prefer to plot to an eps file. Plots to this file will have line widths, colors and scale. When opening the files in Photoshop, you can select any resolution you might need for the project (web, presentation borads), and the file will always open to with the sheet size and scale you plotted in autocad, and at the resolution you specified.

 

thank you! that's the waY! it's what i was looking for!!! first i tried to export as a eps, but the lines were so faint!!! i tried what you said and it's perfect!! creates a layer, preserves linewights and scale, everything!!

thankksss!!!!

[janthonylo]

well, I do use architectural desktop and photoshop,

 

first I clean my drawing and make all the layer color 9 or a thin line then I go to PostCripl level 1 plus. pc3 ploter, to plot to file, file name is floorp_1.EPS (or any name), then I select 24X36, scale to fit and I do a window to the floor plan, PEN ASSIGMENT USE THE ONE FROM YOU COMPANY, BUT USE A THIN PEN LAYER,

 

open Photoshop and open your file, a window show up asking the resolution and size I do, with 36 and height 24/resolution 200 or 300 ( depent in your computer power)

 

the file show up, do a select all and copy,

go file and new accept any window the show up

paste command and you have your first layer,

name this layer a black line and start working with layer group as yuo whish.

see my images attache,

 

hope this help

 

[/img]

[silvio raid]

Ok, everything is allright, but you still have to re do every single line in Photoshop to fill the different rooms with textures, etc. right?

 

Is there any way that you can take advantage of the vector lines that you draw before in architectural desktop or in autocad?

 

thanks

silvio

[Vince Paske]

I eps-plot out of auto-cad separatley the elements I want colored in photoshop, then use the "shift-drag" layer option to place those elements in the correct location on top of each other in one file. I may combine up 5 eps files in this fashion. That way you have all the pieces of your plan on separate layers, making it much easier to color and eps out of auto-cad again if something is tweaked

[afegadi]

for the last months I tried to experiment with .jpg and .pdf format, using CorelDraw and AutoCAD [you must have a pdf creator to do it] with this softwares and of course some others, you could do better presentations.

I mixed up with an image editor, but to edit an image created in AutoCAD, i had to plot it to .jpg, through pdf creator.

Check out this results, they are the final step, after al least 12 steps within 3 programs.

[rimshot]

what i do is i make a compressed TIFF plot file of the drawing its good cause you can have on any scale u want since its a plot procedure, plus the fact that u also retain your line values and such..after that id open and edit it on PS..hope this helps;)