[stosh]

Hey guys, we're trying to convert some Autocad drawings to thumbnails for links on our website. We can convert photos just fine, however the autocad drawings come out all pixelated when we try to shrink them. Any suggestions?

 

[stinkyboy]

Sounds like the vector CAD files need to be rasterized. I'm not familiar with CAD files, but Photoshop sounds like the tool to use.

 

[BigMike]

Can't you just export the CAD drawing as a Jpeg and do it from there? Or is that whats coming out pixelated?

 

[stosh]

Yep, thats what I do. Thing is I can't get the JPEG to shrink down without it getting messed up.

 

[N8 v2.0]

 

[JRB]

I don't know about people, but feeding horses biotin makes their feet grow.

 

[caboverpete]

My guess is your not going to get them to shrink down too far without being blurry due to the fact that your line weights are already pretty thin... like only a couple pixels wide in the original jpeg your creating so when you scale it down the lines are going to lose most of there detail.

 

[stosh]

My guess is your not going to get them to shrink down too far without being blurry due to the fact that your line weights are already pretty thin... like only a couple pixels wide in the original jpeg your creating so when you scale it down the lines are going to lose most of there detail.

Yeah thats what the problem is. How do we fix it?

 

[caboverpete]

Yeah thats what the problem is. How do we fix it?

I dont know that you are going to have much success no matter what you do, how small of a thumnail are we talking? also how big are these drawings? Are you trying to take a E sized layout down to 200 pixels wide? You may have to pick a distinct area of the layout that would look good as a thumbnail and try to work with just that smaller area.

 

[Transcend]

Try exporting as a vector image (if you can, AI/EPS etc) and resizing that way, it will scale much better.

 

[caboverpete]

You'll probably be limited to either an eps or wmf. I just tried a wmf and scaled it a couple of different ways and neither were very good.

 

[stosh]

I tried to export it to a PDF as well and that didn't work.

 

[Transcend]

PDF will never scale well.

 

[Changleen]

Sounds like you're barking up the wrong tree. Why not just use nice long decriptive file names?

 

[Dartman]

Shrink down the view in Autocad to about the size you want. Then do a shift-printscreen and paste it into paint. Then crop down to just the image and save it as a jpeg.

Vector images are point coordinates that when resized keep their detail by moving the points closer or further apart and re-connecting them with lines. Raster images use a grid of pixels and when resized have to remove or add pixels to do so which is why they fall apart.

Mike

 

[BigMike]

Shrink down the view in Autocad to about the size you want. Then do a shift-printscreen and paste it into paint. Then crop down to just the image and save it as a jpeg.

Vector images are point coordinates that when resized keep their detail by moving the points closer or further apart and re-connecting them with lines. Raster images use a grid of pixels and when resized have to remove or add pixels to do so which is why they fall apart.

Mike

you are SO helping me with my VectorWorks project this weekend!

 

[H8R]

http://www.print-driver.com/
http://www.cadopolis.com/autocad_addons/AnyDWG_DWG-DXF-Converter.shtml

Maybe one of those kinds of programs?

I've had some luck in the past exporting to .wmf, but it usually looks like ass - none of the lineweights translate correctly.

 

[stosh]

awesome guys thanks for the help!!

What I did was DWF the drawing so it keeps the line types correct and adds a white background. Then I "print screened" it, opened it irfanview and made some slight mod's to it and BAM, exactly what I wanted!!!