Wondering if anyone has an app that avoids playing round with the zoom on a pdf document and then holding a scale rule up to the screen to get a dimension?
Adobe has a built in measuring tool.?ÿ You can even set the scale to get measurements directly without converting.?ÿ
Carlson or maybe AutoCAD has pdfattach.?ÿ You can bring a pdf in, scale it and then grab the dimensions you need.
Both solutions above work especially well if you have a vector pdf rather than a raster pdf.
Bluebeam pdf revu is pretty good, if you are looking for a paid option.
Nitro Pro has a measurement tool as well.
discovering I could import pdf plans into civil 3d blew my mind... apparently is was a feature for years before someone to me about it. Just have to be careful with scale. For example the Pdf lists scale as 1" = 20' but on importing it is actually, 1" = 19.9971688171'.
We use 12d software in NZ, bigger firms have civil3d for engineers.
Is the measure tool in the full version of adobe? Never noticed it in the standard one.
@lukenz I know that it is in Acrobat 11 and the current Acrobat DC. I'm not sure if it is in Adobe Reader. In both versions it's not on the toolbar by default. Seems like you have to go under Tools or something like that to add it to the toolbar. I'll look later when I'm on my desktop.
Are you importing an original pdf file or a scan crated pdf.
I ask because most people print to fit instead of print to scale.
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I had this happen once when the crowd that drew the plans for a Zaxby's refused to release CAD files (even though we were awarded the job and they knew the prime we were working for). I was tasked with creating a grading model & decided to rip the linework & other info from the PDF's into C3D. Everything came in (although not connected linework so it was fairly tedious as the linework with letters in it came in all jumbled up). But I ended up noticing about 2 hours in that the lines were scaling just a hundredth or two short at times on this smaller commercial site (area was right at one acre & it was rectangular thankfully). I ended up having to tweak it some to get it almost perfect but then again nothing ever quite is... I was even more relieved when the surveyor that the prime hired to stake the job was out there & ended up verifying everything that the GPS grading model had in it (curb line & storm drainage were spot on X,Y,Z).
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Side note for those asking it- it seriously irks me to no end when designers/engineers/architects won't release CAD files but will release plans & PDF's of their designs (even when you the third party offer to sign an indemnification waiver for their benefit). I mean honestly if that's the case then they should reconsider putting their services out there to begin with as any item released can be used as misconstrued information with a crooked attorney looking to sue for the wrong reasons... what killed me is that the owner of the project & the prime contractor both were cool with us obtaining the files. but being the new kid to the team I figured it wasn't worth the dispute between the guys who had been working together already & I was grateful to have found a work-around
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could be mistaken but I've never been able to import a scanned PDF file. only the DWG to PDF type. now you can "PDFattach" a scanned file but it's just like a raster image I think...
i always do a a save-as in acrobat?ÿ to a tiff or png file
then i bring it into autocad as an xref and scale accordingly
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pdf's seem to bog down autocad when attached or xref'd
It depends what was in the original contract. Also, if we're both bidding and you under-bid me, even though I'd done all the original work, don't then expect me to hand you over all the work that enabled me to make what I thought was a decent bid, based on the fact that I had all that in-house.
If you don't understand the difference between being ok with someone using your published, stamped, pdf vs the CAD that was used to develop that product, then we might be onto another tangent/topic.
I agree with @ncsudirtman. But if you are not going to release CAD files then your plans had better well have all of the information needed to calculate from them. Plans now are a total cartoon. Back when I was a youngster we would walk uphill in the snow to the jobsite and then do calculations off of the plans before laying out a parking lot. Everything you needed was on the plans. Fast forward a couple decades and there is absolutely no way to do that without making some big assumptions. I have not seen a bearing on a plan set in years.
Rant off
I routinely get CAD files released when I start pointing out deficiencies in the the hard copy plans...
