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RasterVect is a professional raster to vector conversion program (vectorizer). Its purpose is to quickly convert uneditable scanned paper drawings into accurate vector files for editing (as a CAD drawing) in any CAD program. It saves the converted file as one of vector formats: DXF, WMF, EMF, EPS or AI that can be read by any CAD program that supports these formats, including AutoCAD R14, 2000, LT and similar, like Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, Microstation, VectorWorks, TrueCAD, FastCAD and many others.
It's a direct replacement for traditional tracing and digitizing. It saves a lot of time. It is quicker than tracing with a digitizer.
You will probably be able to load a raster file (like BMP, TIFF, PCX -file) into your CAD program - nowadays most CAD programs can import and display raster files. However, once you have imported a raster file into your CAD program you will find that all you can do is look at it or trace over it. You cannot change or edit it.
This is because CAD programs can only work with vector files. If you want to edit a raster file in your CAD program you must first convert it to a vector file. You do this using raster to vector conversion software.
Once you have converted the raster file to vector you will be able to import it into your CAD program and edit it just like any other drawing you have created using your CAD program.
The list below summarises the process of converting a paper drawing to a CAD drawing using a raster to vector converter:
1. Create a raster file by scanning the paper drawing into RasterVect using a scanner.
2. Use RasterVect to convert the raster file into a vector file.
3. Import the vector file into your CAD program.
4. Edit the drawing in your CAD program.
RasterVect saves many hours of tedious work.
Who uses our program?
1. Today small format scanners are increasingly common on the desktops of CAD users. A growing number of CAD professionals want to scan and convert drawings for editing in their CAD program. You now have the ability to convert mechanical, electrical or architectural drawings done by hand into drawings that you can edit in your CAD program and save it onto disk.
2. You receive a lot of small faxed drawings, that in the past you had to digitize into AutoCAD, which is far slower.
3. You carry a large number of drawings in bitmap format which you have tended to mainly view and print, but the facility to convert this data to raster format on demand is proving invaluable to your technical staff.
4. You have a picture (or photo) as hardcopy (or raster file) and you would like to make an engraving on a metal, wood, plastic or brass (for three dimensional inscription, signboard, picture etc). You now have the ability to convert this raster picture to an input file (usually .dxf file) for cutting or router system (for example, CNC router).
Will it work for you?
The only way to find whether RasterVect will work for you is to try it using one of your own scanned drawings.
You can do this using the RasterVect trial version. This allows you to read in your own scanned drawings, and convert them.
Once you can see the conversion results you will be able to answer the question - "Is it quicker to edit a converted drawing in my CAD program or will I be better off redrawing the whole thing from scratch?"
If you are using RasterVect it will usually be quicker to use this vectorizer and edit the results than to digitize, trace or redraw a whole drawing from scratch. However there will be times when the original quality of the scanned drawing makes vectorization and subsequent editing a practical impossiblity. This is true for all raster to vector conversion programs, none of which perform magic.
Automatic vectorizing is not perfect. It does, however, provide a way to getting a paper drawings into your CAD program for quick and easy editing. It will not give you excellent results all the time. But when it does it is a very useful tool to have on your computer. |
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