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Not sure if vector-based importing or referencing is being actively developed or due soon... but it would be useful to have a function to vectorise the annotation elements like text and dimensions in the mean time.
Currently, vector format pdfs are converted into raster on import. it would be good to be able to convert the annotation elements to Mstn text and dims for editing and searching purposes.
Maybe the user could use a fence to limit the conversion to certain areas? I think that Descartes has long had some OCR functionality?
In addition to this: I played with PDF Annotation Export
In PDFs you can add annotations. Then you can export them to ".fdf"-files. These can be imported to other pdfs (USE: if you want to e.g. use similar remarks in another pdf)
I managed to 1.create a pdf-file from microstation 2. annotate it 3. export the annotation into a fdf 4. manually edit a fdf file (to lines of Text, X,Y,Z) and use this to import the text into microstation (via >Annotations>Model. (The location where the texts landed did not quite fit - I had to scale them 3Pt to make them fit)
It would be great to use a Import from FDF into MicroStation.
So Users could annotate PDF files and the annotations (texts only !?) could be imported.
Would save a lot keying in.