converting to cad from pdf

[Anonymous]

Does anybody have any solutions that are mac based? There are a ton of them for windows. I would really like a MAC program that can turn pdf's to cad format.

[Eduardo Rolon]

File-> Open
File->Export
Select DWG

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unless it is an image then you have to select the image and click on the live trace button and then follow the above…

[Anonymous]

when I export from illustrator all I see is a text edit icon with the dwg or dxf extension and when I open it in archicad all I see is a drawing pane on a blank sheet of paper and a jpg in the same location as my "dwg". Btw the PDF in illustrator is shown the same way. It shows as a PDF floating on a blank sheet. How do I get the vectorials? Does it matter that the PDF in question is a scanned image? I will give it the ranch treatment tomorrow as that computer is still at the office and I don't want to spend another two hours downloading again for my laptop. ( I am at home) I wish there was a dedicated stand alone app or a plug in for archicad.

[Dwight]

How can you possibly expect a scanned, raster image to be magically transformed into vectors? [Yikes. Ay karumba! Insert favorite epithet here]

Saving a vector image to PDF CAN preserve vector information, but no mere translator understands pixels as vectors.

If you want to understand this process, start by saving or printing an Archicad floor plan to PDF. THEN bring it to Illustrator and THEN import it back as an Archicad object.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Dwight wrote:
How can you possibly expect a scanned, raster image to be magically transformed into vectors?

Moreover, even for the software that is out there that does try to convert raster images into vectors...the results I saw (some years ago now) were pretty useless, as it was rare to end up with sufficient precision with regard to line length or angle.

Try Dwight's exercise, Shae, for future reference. But, your subject line here should have been 'converting a scanned image to vector linework', which is possible, but problematic and another story altogether.

Illustrator can do some crude 'live trace', which is fine for graphics images, but not really for CAD.

Here's some more info on conversion:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/bitmaptovector/Bitmap_to_Vector_Conversion_Tracing_Software_Raster_...

and here's one program that Google turned up:
http://lp.adskhost.com/index.php/1335-autocad-raster-design-faqs.html?CMP=KNC-util-geosp-aw-raster-1

or

http://www.softcover.com/index.htm

See also this page for what things can cause problems for image conversion:
http://www.softcover.com/hints_quality.htm

Karl