Please not only focus on "importing" but also referencing! Our use case would be to use a PDF file as underlay, scale it based on a known dimension, ... then draw new gemeotry by snapping to the PDF.
Mstn in the Digital Twins era: Bentley has been investing heavily in providing tools for capturing 'contexts' ie point clouds, scans, 3d gis (Cesium), IoT, other file formats like IFC, DWG, RVT, database info like Maximo etc using iTwins.js.
This is great for clients that will be able to get everything in 'one place'. They realise that all decision making and design suffers from the overheads associated with finding and comparing etc legacy info or 'context capture'. See PlantSight.
But a lot of the info will be on 2d drawings etc in pdf format. Including I suspect 3d pdfs in future.
Mstn needs to be able to ride on iTwins coat tails and leverage this consolidated info as best as possible to stay relevant. Vectorisation would contribute, but we should go further.
This would be great as we often get pdf files that we need to redraw.
f.mandoki over 3 years ago We use third party software (Print2Cad) to translate vector based PDF files to DWG. Would be nice to have this implemented in Microstation/PowerDraft, though.
We use third party software (Print2Cad) to translate vector based PDF files to DWG. Would be nice to have this implemented in Microstation/PowerDraft, though.
No problem, just be aware that it only works satisfyingly with PDFs containing vectors. I found it to be not very precise with underlying jpg or tif files.
Thank you again! We didn't even know this was possible until I discovered this thread which prompted more research. We found another way via Autocad that works Converting a PDF to a DGN.
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...
Reference attach should support PDF files as vectors. Snapping to PDF objects would be available and georeferencing would be supported for those PDF files with georeferencing information.
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(Technology Preview) To Import a PDF with Vector Elements
Set configuration variable MS_IMPORT_USINGADOBEPDF to 0 and restart your session.
Open the Import dialog (File > Import > Exchange File Types > PDF(*.pdf)).
Please not only focus on "importing" but also referencing! Our use case would be to use a PDF file as underlay, scale it based on a known dimension, ... then draw new gemeotry by snapping to the PDF.
great, I'm looking forward to it
Mstn in the Digital Twins era: Bentley has been investing heavily in providing tools for capturing 'contexts' ie point clouds, scans, 3d gis (Cesium), IoT, other file formats like IFC, DWG, RVT, database info like Maximo etc using iTwins.js.
This is great for clients that will be able to get everything in 'one place'. They realise that all decision making and design suffers from the overheads associated with finding and comparing etc legacy info or 'context capture'. See PlantSight.
But a lot of the info will be on 2d drawings etc in pdf format. Including I suspect 3d pdfs in future.
Mstn needs to be able to ride on iTwins coat tails and leverage this consolidated info as best as possible to stay relevant. Vectorisation would contribute, but we should go further.
I hope it will be comparable to https://blogs.autodesk.com/autocad/how-to-import-a-pdf-into-autocad/
Enhancement # 537304
Great to hear, this is a long overdue feature, looking forward to testing/using it.
mwlong over 5 years ago
This would be great as we often get pdf files that we need to redraw.
f.mandoki over 3 years ago We use third party software (Print2Cad) to translate vector based PDF files to DWG. Would be nice to have this implemented in Microstation/PowerDraft, though.
Jose Pinho over 5 years ago
If the PDF has more than 1 page give us the chance to import the page that we want!
And give us the chance to import PDF layers also!
Ivo Blaauw over 5 years ago
Also import of U3D geometry.
--f.mandoki over 3 years ago
We use third party software (Print2Cad) to translate vector based PDF files to DWG. Would be nice to have this implemented in Microstation/PowerDraft, though.
Luke Crowley 4 months ago in reply tof.mandoki
Thanks for the tip! This will save me years of work! Vectorizing capability should be implemented into every cad software.
f.mandoki 4 months ago in reply toLuke Crowley
No problem, just be aware that it only works satisfyingly with PDFs containing vectors. I found it to be not very precise with underlying jpg or tif files.
Luke Crowley 3 months ago in reply tof.mandoki
Thank you again! We didn't even know this was possible until I discovered this thread which prompted more research. We found another way via Autocad that works Converting a PDF to a DGN.
-Lorys 9 months ago
AutoCAD have had this feature since 2017-18 and with layers/ levels
Alan Bartlett 9 months ago
Both Autocad and Vectorworks can vectorise pdfs, this is long overdue in Ustn.
What do you want to do ?New mailCopy
Samir Haque 3 months ago
Just a quick update. We are in the process of adding this feature and are hoping for a mid-2021 release. Thanks for your patience.
Samir