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What's the best way to share plans?

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What's the best way to share plans?

Old 12-19-2005, 12:41 PM
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chall
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Default What's the best way to share plans?

What's the best format to share plans on the web? I'd like someone to be able to print them out and get the exact same size parts I get. I've tried GID's and JPEG's, and Mac and PC users get different size images even with the same printer.

Would Adobe Acrobat be the way to go? And how many pixels equal an inch of print out?

Thanks!

C. Hall
Raleigh, NC
Old 12-19-2005, 02:01 PM
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BMatthews
 
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Default RE: What's the best way to share plans?

PDF (Acrobat) for smaller plans and DXF or DWG for large plans. When you start talking about large stuff it's best to stick to the CAD software option. Yes it means folks need to get some form of CAD or CAD viewer to look at them and print them but it's really the only way to ensure the plans are sized correctly.
Old 12-19-2005, 03:56 PM
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SoCal GliderGuider
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Default RE: What's the best way to share plans?

I suggest PDF for all plan sizes. You have to run the Adobe Acrobat plug-in from inside the CAD program. My experiance is with AutoCAD and I can PDF out drawings as accurate as any machine duped hand inked drawing in any size a large format printer can produce. You do have to watch the Acrobat printing settings as this can skew the print out scale.
Old 12-19-2005, 08:22 PM
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marwen1
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Default RE: What's the best way to share plans?

Both SoCal and BMathews are correct with their answers, however when you open a DFX file, the lines are as sharp as a tack. Once you change it to almost ANY other format, the file loses its integrity. Not to say that they won't be readable, just that the lines won't be sharp.

I try to print from a TIF. That's because that type of file never got compressed. The problem isn't with the compresiing though as much as it is when you DECOMPRESS, let's say a JPG. If the jpg was a large file and it was REALLY compressed to a high degree, there will be little, what is called, "artifacts" or else "footprints" around the edges of all of the lines. Not really appealing. If you can print from the DXF file, it's as I said earlier SHARP!

marwen
Old 12-19-2005, 08:59 PM
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flybug
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Default RE: What's the best way to share plans?

To add to Marwen's comment as well if you have a friend or someone in your club (like in my club )has a laser cutter you will need the CAD plans to get it cut.
Old 12-19-2005, 09:04 PM
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Default RE: What's the best way to share plans?

I have been saving my plans using AutoDesks DWF print utility (free) for sending the file to the printers. I am impressed with the quality of the printy using that format. I know that when converting a DWG to DWF that the size of the plan doesn't change at all unlike some PDF conversion software out there that ended up shrinking the size of the plan quite alot.
I have verified this on my own printer comparing DWG, DWF and PDF file prints.
Old 12-19-2005, 09:42 PM
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CoosBayLumber
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Default RE: What's the best way to share plans?

CAD is just Different. Remember that.

For what you are trying to describe has been debated numerous times at CAD forums like those at Autodesk and CADALOG. You cannot convert a vector CAD based drawing into a raster image with 100% accuracy, and if you read the note at Adobe, they too will tell you that zero of the known formats can accurately reproduce any drawing. There are just too many variables, especially along the X axis (using Autocad) or the Y axis on a Windows based CAD system. Then, chuck the drawing up into some graphic software and yet more distortion comes in. Not talking appearances like linework, but the position of the lines in relation to one another. I once had to coordinate the effort on a multi-million dollar development in which two architects and three engineers all got involved. Zero, no one, talked using raster imaging for exchange of ideas or problem solving. We all talked straight old fashioned CAD linework for it was much, much more accurate.

I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but CAD software is designed to be directed to the standard output receiving device, the plotter. Plotters have been around since the late 1950's, long before Word Processing, graphic devices, TIF, BMP, JPG or other formats were considered. As of yesterday, they are still using those CAD based outputs, and I do not think you have a hoot of a chance to convince any firm or software user to change. Quoting that something does not look good in any of these noted formats is a Yawn to any real CAD firm. (Read initial sentence) So what, if the output is inaccurate as to appearances, for it was not designed to be. For receiving any drawing in either of these formats, is just for pictorial purposes. If within CAD it is inaccurate as to the position of line intersections or endpoints, then they are concerned.

CAD is not color. Colors are used to define black lines on white paper. If you read the above note, this is the way they have been doing it for nearly 1/2 a century. Go to your printer/plotter output section in your CAD software and you ought to find a way to set the variables as to line widths. You assign a certain width to a certain color, and each and every computer can have a different set up. No two are alike. (Read initial sentence) Colors determine the line width. The only exception to this is that for past ten years, color can also be set to a variable density. This being most often used for shading purposes. Line width can be thickened via multi-stroking, or use of Polylines also.

Line type is set most generally by layer. It can be set via special settings for individual lines too.

Therefore, when you write a CAD plan to a disk, give it to another firm, those line weights, and line types may or may not be to the expected appearances. (Read initial sentence) To illustrate this, you may set your personal computer such that line color green draws a line of .023" wide. When someone two time zones away receives your drawing in CAD format, they send it through their plotter and it comes out .035 inches wide. Not as you intended, and thus it looks odd. But it is accurate which is the major feature of CAD. Likewise via conversion software, the same drawing can be made to look nice, but the resulting lines may be shorter or longer a few too. If you visit the Jo Jusko plan web-site noted above, most everything posted there is in CAD language, not graphic language. This being the most accurate. If you thumb through the free downloads there, many, many of them will reveal skinny lines, but of different colors for this is the most accurate format. Iffn' you know a bit about CAD, then you just alter those blue lines into what you expect for an appropriate line width. CAD then will do the rest. PDF, Tiff, and other graphic representations are about as accurate as taking a photograph of your plan.

Cad files and softwares operate off of hard coordinates. Take a view of a finished CAD file once and nearly the whole thing will be numbers. Take a view of a graphic file, and it will look like jibberish. I think there are four different styles of TIF files available, two of BMP, and an endless number of combinations for a JPG file. But CAD files only come out one way, numerically. If you want an example of distortion, go to the Pattern Flyers forum, and look at a download I received. Took me an afternoon of running Adobe Photoshop to get rid of the distortion, but right smack off the plotter it looked good. Had it been done in CAD, then it would have taken mabe five minutes, the time it takes to warm up the plotter.

As to sharing, if you want to "Show off" any of the graphic languages will do. If you want to share something accurate, then you go to a site like for Jo Jusko, and send the file in DWG or DXF format.

Wm.
Old 12-20-2005, 09:35 AM
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Default RE: What's the best way to share plans?

Well, YOU read it! I have to say Wm. you certainly know your stuff!

So, from now on, if ANYONE has any questions about CAD stuff, we'll all refer them to you!

Merry Christmas!

marwen
Old 12-20-2005, 10:44 AM
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Default RE: What's the best way to share plans?

CAD is just different.....

One other situation I forgot to mention regarding line widths on plotters and printers, this a hang over from the pen and pencil plotting era which I knew.

The plotersand printers have a manual override within them. Thus just because you send the proper signals down the COM port wires to the plotter/printer, they can be altered there again. Most all of these have a on board set up routine which is manually triggered in. It is a part of their controller main borad. H-P, Calcomp, OCE', Eumonics, they all have it.

It originally was intended as a means "Just to keep going" that day until the repair man showed up. It told like the signals coming down the wire for green lines to instead be shown to parameters of the yellow wire. Thus that thick wire then came out thinner looking. Unfortunately, most all of the systems that I worked upon would not tell you, nor warn you that this feature had been invoked. It could quietly be set in by anyone within the office, and if they forgot to neutralize it, it stayed until some later person figured it all out, or re set the settings to how they were yesterday. You can imagine the cussing that went on when when the drawing came out looking screwy, so you questioned yourself instead of the equipment. The centerline for a drawing is very seldom drawn 1/4 inch wide.

CAD is just different....


Wm.

Old 12-20-2005, 06:50 PM
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SoCal GliderGuider
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Default RE: What's the best way to share plans?

The DWF file format is Autodesks answer for Adobes PDF file. Basically a plot file where all of the text and compound curves have been reduced to lines and arcs. It is smaller than a PDF and does require a viewer from Autodesk. There are third party utilities where you can take the DWF back into Acad but it's almost usless as true drawing file. Just as the drawing data extracted from a PDF is almost useless. The PDF does do a better job of trying to keep the text font even imbedding the resource font file into the PDF. One of the reasons for it's larger size besides the attached viewer that Acrobat uses.

If you have a plotting service that can print the DWF you are well ahead of the curve. Some services have to translate a PDF or even a DWG file into a TIF to send it to their large format printers.

Note that both a DWF and a PDF developed from inside Acad use vector information. Converting a drawing to a TIF then using Acrobat as a means of keeping it scale for end user printing is about the best way you can protect your work. Could even use a light gray over print like a water mark. Since this is all raster info the water mark becomes part of the data and difficult to remove.

Another overlooked vector format is Microsofts WMF. Very compact. Autocad can open and save (export) in this format.

AutoCAD's plotting set up has become extemely complex. Almost a program in itself.

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