Export from DraftSight?

Discussion in 'Software' started by authenticboats, Feb 26, 2012.

  1. authenticboats
    Joined: Feb 2012
    Posts: 2
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    Location: Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

    authenticboats New Member

    I'm re-working an 1890s sailing canoe design that I've brought into Freeship. I've begun to export individual elements from Freeship into DraftSight, beginning with the developed plates. In DraftSight, I've scaled them up to full size and dimensioned them so they can be used for laying out the plywood panels. So far, so good.

    The last step is to export the drawings from DraftSight into a format, either .eps, .tif or .pdf, that I can place into Adobe InDesign, which is what I'm using to lay out the book I'm writing. So far, not so good.

    Does anyone have any experience with this workflow, or with exporting from DraftSight to anything other than a regular, large-format drawing?

    Thanks,

    J
     
  2. LP
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Location: 26 36.9 N, 82 07.3 W

    LP Flying Boatman

    I use PDF995 To create fillsize patterns from my CAD software. These PDF files are sent off to the printers where they are printed full size on continuous rolls of bond paper. PDF995 operates as a psuedo-printer and creates PDF files through the printer dialog pages. You should be able to scale your drawing to any size and utilize them in any manner that you woiuld use a PDF file.
     
  3. DCockey
    Joined: Oct 2009
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    Location: Midcoast Maine

    DCockey Senior Member

    .jpg? but my experience is .jpg isn't the best format for line drawings.

    When exporting from Rhino as a .jpg, .tif or .pdf image I've needed to play with line width to get satisfactory results. No experience with DraftSight though.
     
  4. LP
    Joined: Jul 2005
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    Location: 26 36.9 N, 82 07.3 W

    LP Flying Boatman

    The key to good output, at least with the PDF option, is in the page setting and page lay-out parameters setup in the print dialog.

    It sounds like many people are trying to blow up an 8 1/2" x 11" page into something larger, but that scales the line widths up also to a less than satifactory or usable width.

    With the method I'm promoting, the drawing output is exactly as defined by your drawing parameters. Perhap, this is what DC is refering to as a very thin line is going to be "very thin", but also still very legible.

    I will typically go in and define a custom page size to fit my work or desired output. A standard page size will work fine too if it fits your work. If you are going to scale your output, scale it to fit the desired final print size and all of your print details will be preserved in legible format. For printing material booksize, I could see having to manipulate line widths and font size (wider and larger) to keep information viewable.

    I'm going to be trying Draftsight for some 2D work. If your interested in the nuts and bolts of the page lay-out scheme, let me know and I'll post it here when I get to that point.
     
  5. authenticboats
    Joined: Feb 2012
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    Location: Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

    authenticboats New Member

    Thanks for the advice, everyone. I'm actually scaling down, not up, in that I need to fit a 16' dimensioned panel layout onto an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet in such a way that the line widths and resolution are still readable.

    I tried the option of using pdf995 mentioned above, but I'm still running into what seem to be resolution problems for the final output.

    I'll try defining a custom page size, but would appreciate any additional tips, LP, as you work with DraftSight.
     

  6. garydierking
    Joined: Sep 2004
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    Location: New Zealand

    garydierking Senior Member

    Just use the copy command in DraftSight and paste straight into Illustrator.
     
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