STRAT Posted June 13, 2002 Share Posted June 13, 2002 hi there at some stage or other most of us have the problem of getting our autocad drawings into photoshop. well, there are numerous methods of doing this - some good, some poor. and we all have our own prefered solutions. for some of you who are still frustrated by this then visit the tut section here - http://www.cadtutor.net/ there's some explanations and methods here. Undoubtably the best method is to import into either adobe illustrator or photoshop as a line or vector image, giving you complete control at any scale/size. This means exporting from AutoCAD as a .PDF file. Unfortunately unless you have Acrobat Writer (about £400) .PDF's are not an option. I realise the .PDF format is an Adobe product, but i was wondering if anybody knows of any legit freeware program that will allow me to write .PDF's from autocad? We only have 1 Acrobat Write lisence at the mo, so more .PDF exporters would be most usefull. Anyone? (Btw Jeff, if this post leads to warez links being posted up then please delete it - i only intend legit links, if they exist!!!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quizzy Posted June 13, 2002 Share Posted June 13, 2002 The "allmighty" ahum quizzy has the free answer... Download DIALUX for windows you can find it here Its about 100 MB. If you've installed it, you will notice a dialux pdf printer among your printers. In autocad just plot to that printer and plot to file. The filename must have a .pdf extension... That's the way it oughtta be..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted June 13, 2002 Author Share Posted June 13, 2002 100MB??????? jeepers! what is this app then? thnx for the link btw:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quizzy Posted June 13, 2002 Share Posted June 13, 2002 its a light calculation program.. no shadows though.. hmmmmm the jeepers from you was i think your way to say that you have a normal modem connection?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake Middleton Posted June 13, 2002 Share Posted June 13, 2002 Hey Strat, you might try some of these. Let me know if you find one that works. Download.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quizzy Posted June 13, 2002 Share Posted June 13, 2002 or ge here and buy it..... go here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake Middleton Posted June 13, 2002 Share Posted June 13, 2002 These look promising Visagesoft . I'm downloading the printer driver as we speak. Its less that 5mb. [ June 13, 2002, 09:39 AM: Message edited by: Blake Middleton ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake Middleton Posted June 13, 2002 Share Posted June 13, 2002 Just tried the printer driver from Visagesoft, and it works great. The free version puts a little ad at the top for the company, but the full version only costs $49. A lot cheaper than Acrobat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted June 13, 2002 Share Posted June 13, 2002 Damn, Wish I knew about that before I forked over $500CDN for Acrobat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quizzy Posted June 13, 2002 Share Posted June 13, 2002 OR: for the fast internet users, donwload dialux then you have a pdf printer for free!!! hehe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeDaCoM Posted June 13, 2002 Share Posted June 13, 2002 yeah DAMN !!! heh.. may be it would be a nice idea to create a forum here to announce freeware software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quizzy Posted June 13, 2002 Share Posted June 13, 2002 post your previous post in "suggest a new forum".... I think its a good idea... But please lets keep it architectural...hehe [ June 13, 2002, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: quizzy ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted June 14, 2002 Author Share Posted June 14, 2002 hey, thanks guys for the suggestions. i'll be sure to check them out asap Quizzy - the reason for the jeepers was not because we're not on broardband (which we are) but because i was expecting a download file of more like 1 mb let alone 100mb! i was only looking for a pdf proggy, not a whole app. my I.T. manager in work here would kick my ass all down the street if i attempted to clog up our network downloading that. LOL. Maybe i'll try it this weekend. thnx again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quizzy Posted June 14, 2002 Share Posted June 14, 2002 The most important thing is that its FREE!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nisus Posted June 15, 2002 Share Posted June 15, 2002 Hi all, I don't know why you people need additional programs, since autocad has a standard EPS-export. EPS is a vector-format, so this solves you prob... rgds nisus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted June 16, 2002 Author Share Posted June 16, 2002 nisus - true, but have you tried getting decent results using it? and file sizes? i havent. if you have please write a small tut on it, i be most interested to use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nisus Posted June 16, 2002 Share Posted June 16, 2002 Hi strat, I did actually, because we had to color-in plans a while ago (lots of A0 300dpi files: big!) Unfortunatelly it was all trial and error and I had a hard time making a few additionally plans look alike a few months later. Next time I'll write down the steps on it. (I remember the trick was in setting up the canvas size, but that's about what I remember.) In the past, I used the tif/jpg output but unfortunately you cannot export to a higher resolution than your screenres. So splitting the image in 4/9/16 and photoshopping did correct this. Eps-export makes this step unnecessary, but idd it's hard, so I'll write it down next time rgds nisus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeDaCoM Posted June 16, 2002 Share Posted June 16, 2002 I have exported from AutoCAD to JPG or PNG with resolutions of 8000 pixels width without problems. You only have to set a new paper size in the properties of the JPG printer. But I can't get good results with it in the lineweight. They all are 1 pixel width. So I think PDF is a good option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted June 17, 2002 Author Share Posted June 17, 2002 Originally posted by Hector: I have exported from AutoCAD to JPG or PNG with resolutions of 8000 pixels width without problems. You only have to set a new paper size in the properties of the JPG printer. But I can't get good results with it in the lineweight. They all are 1 pixel width. So I think PDF is a good option.can you explain exactly how you do that please? I'm talking plain flat 2d cad plans here, not 3d models. Autocad's renderer wond 'render' 2d plans. thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeDaCoM Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 You only have to plot your drawing in the same way you plot to a printer. but. in this case. the printer is a plot to file driver. You have to add this plotter in the Plotter manager of AutoCAD. Raster file format printer. You can choose from various file formats.. JPG PNG TGA TIF... you can configure the printer to set the paper sizes (this time in pixels, no inches or centimeters). It's easy. Use the "Scale to fit" option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted June 17, 2002 Author Share Posted June 17, 2002 Hector - cheers for the explanation. just been trying it. same problem you got, managed to write to a jpg file at 8000x6000 but it came out very pixilated and completely non-antialiased, and no line weights. no good unfortunately. pdf it is so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asim Harbas Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 Try with Ghostscript http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted June 17, 2002 Author Share Posted June 17, 2002 well guys just been experimenting and sorted out a decent solution, actually a cross between nissus's and hector's answers - use a postscript.pc3 plot device, select your paper size and plot to file as an eps file. cheers guys. got there in the end. (PDF still better tho!!!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nisus Posted June 17, 2002 Share Posted June 17, 2002 Hi strat, It might still be better if you plot-file to a bigger canvas size... as far as I remember... rgds nisus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted June 17, 2002 Author Share Posted June 17, 2002 yeah, you're right nisus, just gets to a point of juggling the dpi/canvas sizes against your available processor capabilities. thnx again:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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