AutoCAD Drawings from Raster Images: A Power Tip

by R. Kamalathasan, Assistant Manager (Projects), The Magnum Group

When you do a paper to CAD conversion, the input document is often a scanned paper print (also known as a “raster image file”). It is usually in TIFF, JPEG, BMP or PDF format.

You will usually attach the raster image file to a new AutoCAD drawing and start tracing over it. You may sometimes get frustrated if the raster image file is too large: panning, for instance, takes an extended period of time because of the large size of the raster image file.

So what’s a solution to make it easy to work in AutoCAD when raster image files are attached?

The best way is to convert the raster image file to PNG format and then insert it into AutoCAD!

Photoshop will help you to convert the raster image files from any format to PNG. If you don’t have Photoshop there are some free programs that do the job. You can easily find one by Googling.

You will definitely have a better AutoCAD working experience with PNG files since they are smaller and have transparent backgrounds.

Hope this helps!

Technorati Tags: AutoCAD drawings, AutoCAD drafting, raster images, PNG, outsource AutoCAD, CAD services

© 2006 - 2008 The Magnum Group. Reproduction of our content in any form without prior, specific written permission is prohibited.

Learn more about our Engineering drafting and architectural drafting services

Reduce Image Size, not Image Quality

by R Kamalathasan, Assistant Manager (Projects), The Magnum Group

Have you ever thought about using super-intelligent image resizing software to minimize image filesize?

Are you wasting a lot of time trying to resize images without causing their quality to drop like a stone?

Ok, then you should know about “Seam Carving”.

What’s “Seam carving”? No idea what it means?… ok, here’s a small description:

It’s an image resizing technique based on removal of pixels identified as zero importance by a special algorithm developed by Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir.

To get a better idea about the capabilities of seam carving technique watch this video: http://www.seamcarving.com/

SEAMonster and Liquid Resize are some of the wonderful programs that do image seam carving and they are free.

There is also a site which does online image seam carving. Check it out and get your images resized magically to
your needs!

© 2006 - 2008 The Magnum Group. Reproduction of our content in any form without prior, specific written permission is prohibited.

Learn more about our Engineering drafting and architectural drafting services

Roundup of Our 3D Visualization Images

Here are all our recent 3D visualizations in one place. They are all of imaginary cellphones. They were created by first making 3D objects in AutoCAD, positioning the objects for a suitable view, rendering the objects and touching up the final images with Adobe Photoshop CS2:

In order of appearance they are the Rolex cellphone, the Boss cellphone, the Nike cellphone and the Tiffany cellphone (click on the name for the full-size image).

Use 3D Visualizations for Marketing

If you have a conceptual product and need to visualize it to evince interest from potential customers, send us your sketches and surface finish description (the “texture”). Our graphic designers and CAD drafting specialists will create a photorealistic rendering in 3D that will wow your customers!

Learn more by viewing our 3D modeling page and our 3D furniture Visualization page.

We’ve done houses, condos, machines, household appliances and a whole lot of other images!

© 2006 - 2008 The Magnum Group. Reproduction of our content in any form without prior, specific written permission is prohibited.

Learn more about our Engineering drafting and architectural drafting services