PDF to ACAD Conversion

Creating a pdf in a cad program with a pdf printer driver is a very different animal from a document that is scanned into a pdf, just look at the size of the files. Hence, your cad to pdf is very clean and readable, the courthouse's is not probably because of the dpi setting on the scan.

As for pdf to cad software, I know nothing about it. But I can tell you that converting graphic imaging to vector imaging will always suffer from image distortion, parallax, etc.

I'm assuming printer drivers that create pdfs from cad drawings there is probably some good vector info..but I wouldn't start worrying about it anytime soon.

...my $0.02

I can remember 20yrs ago seeing other companies taking a drawing and using a tablet and a pointer to create points and locations into cad from a paper drawing.

I've also seen current techs that take anyone's drawing, scan and insert into cad and rotate and scale it into position, then pick points of intersections for rudimentary accurate x,y locations.

Like GIS.

The following is from the Autodesk discussion Group on the subject.

Re: PDF to DWG converter Options
07-26-2011 01:30 PM in reply to: RickW363

They only work if the PDF was created by a CAD or vector graphics program. If it is a scanned image or created by a raster based program, all you get is a raster image.?

This is correct. However we have used a program called pdf2cad v.8 with much success. First you save the pdf file, open the pdf2cad program to convert pdf file to CAD. Then you open file as a dxf into cad and save as .dwg and you're good to go. You do have to scale the dwg up to get it back to 1:1. Somehow it loses it's scale in the conversion process.

My job requires me to draw seating layouts for churches/synogogues/colleges/funeral homes and courtrooms. However at the front end of a project, architects are reluctant to release a CAD file so we end up with a PDF. In the past we had to plot and then scale the entire drawing by hand to recreate in AutoCAD. Since we discovered pdf2cad, that is a thing of the past. We save hrs on every project and are much more accurate and efficient. All I can say is that it works for us! It's a great program!

I feel is this is a double edged sword. We in the field do not want our surveys so easily copied into cad, but on the other hand we love having the option of converting pdf to cad when it comes to engineered construction plans.

EVERYTHING can be manipulated

Look at how many ancient documents have been proven to be forged.

I doesn't matter if it's paper, DWG, PDF, tif or what-have-you. All of them can be manipulated.

I'll never forget the first time my blueprint was manipulated . . . never got over it.

But thankfully, the guy who did it only added a couple of very minor things.

The only pdf to acad conversions I have seen were almost useless.
Arcs, text even straight lines were all converted to lots of very short lines.
Inserting the drawing into acad, then tracing it would be much better.

> BUT can somebody take my recorded plat, and run it backward, and get it to be an actual ACAD dwg, with all the data that was on the plat?
In a word, no.

If the pdf was created by using a program like Acrobat PRO to convert a dwg direct to pdf that same program can be used top reverse the process. But if the pdf is created by scanning a paper copy, forget it. It's just an image.

The same is true for a printed page created in Word. If you use Acrobat to convert it to pdf you can then complete the round trip and convert that pdf back to .docx with near perfect clarity. The formatting will be just like the original. But if your pdf is a scan of a printout the conversion back to .docx will be only more or less successful.

PDF to DXF here:-
http://www.cadkas.com/downengpdf11.php

A little off topic - I recently heard about the existence of 3D pdf's that were CAD produced and dynamic. So after some quick research here is an Adobe samples of CAD drawings that show exactly that. I've also seen topo surveys done with this.
I'm guessing these could also be reverse engineered and the DTM could be extracted from the PDF.
http://www.adobe.com/manufacturing/3dpdfsamples/3dsolutions/

That has been my experience as well.

I will also add that I was using a scanned image of a paper drawing. It will go right to a dxf. As Larry said it is nothing but short line segments - very useless to work with in cadd. You would spend more time cleaning it up than just keying in data from a plan.

TBC Heavy Construction can convert pdf to cad with no problem - I've done it.

If you create the pdf straight from CAD there is tremendous amount of information imbedded in that file.

If you have a pdf that was created in CAD you can even turn on and off layers, measure lines, etc. in Adobe Pro.

I would make pdf from plots if you want to protect your info.

If you creat your PDF by printing to PDF, be sure to sign electronically. If the file has electronic signatures, when you edit it with Adobe, it removes the signature.

They are going to hack your plat.

I'm not sure what the problem is. All the data on the plat is available to be converted some way. I can enter things by reading and reentering, I'm sure we all do it. The only difference would be the time and effort required. Are you worried that a hacked plat carries some liability?

So there is a lot of data in a CAD file that I don't plot to the PDF. I hope that doesn't get written into the PDF from the CAD file.

If you really get into the Adobe conversion programs, you can lock them, password protect them, read only, no printing, digital signatures, etc. Probably won't stop DHS but the average person won't be able to hack your plat if you take the right precautions.