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digitising software?
What does everyone use for digitising shapes. for example if you have a large graphic or shape that has to be exact and is too big to scan and trace?
We use an A0 calcomp tablet (wall mounted) and i am looking for a simple bit of CAD software to use with the tablet to free up some expensive bespoke software which is better employed in other areas..
For example I’ve seen TurboCAD but not used it yet and am not sure that it supports my tablet, before I embark on an evaluation session, I’d welcome feedback. (I plan to digitise, then export an EPS, but it MUST be at 100% actual size in the digitising software)
In fact if anyone out there has an old digitiser of any size (A3 and above) I am also interested in obtaining another one – please contact me!
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7 Replies
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I always used Coreldraw for digitizing. I never quite worked out how to make it work at 100% size, but it was still easy enough to scale it up to the correct size. Ask Colin Burton how we did it, it worked just fine.
BTW, if you haven’t already, go and introduce yourself in the "Say Hello" section. The nosy buggers on here always want to know a bit about everyone. 🙂
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yep.. some of our digitising is scan on photocopier then corel it.
however Corel to Autocad is not the easiest as a little buggy in corel DXF filters. -
Hi Andy, colin has mentioned you before and your range of skills!
We have tried Corel, but it is nigh on impossible to get Corel to do anything intelligent with the input, eg radius corners, maintain lines and angles etc since the parts we are digitising are often up to 1.5 metres across and Corel wont let you scale in and out AND maintain the scale of the input data…
I will go and say hello right now tho!
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hm.. corel is possibly the closest draw program for large scale work as it has a massive paste board, infact I have actually drawn our workshop layout plans in corel and it just fitted, we use it for practically everything, Corel will do radius but it has a poor way of doing it, you have to draw a circle then move the rectangle to the circle as you cannot type "radius 10mm" with it.
If I was doing serious scale work then I would go with the cads like Autocad, I did however have a tinker with Rhino3D which worked very similar to AutoCAD but for 3D modelling reasons.
The other favourite program here is SignLab, this comes in many forms for routering, signmaking or other various installs. Not sure about precesion entry but a lot of people here will swear by it.
Bottom line is, skill and your speed with the tools you know. I could vectorise/digitise shapes in a matter of minutes these days with Corel (or even AutoCAD). However if I had just bought the software I could spend an entire day just trying to figure out how to use the damn mouse!
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AutoCad works very well for what you want and it suports most tablets
Older versions are probably fine , 11, 12, 13 or 14 , we used Acad + tablets for ages and did wonderful work. -
To buy a version of Autocad will be expensive, here is a link to a number of cad programs you could try without major outlay.
http://www.freebyte.com/cad/cad.htm#2D3DCADSystems
Cheers
Fran
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we quite often photograph big things then dig over the image then scale using known sizes.
also printed large grid and placed over the work and then worked to coordinates.chris
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