Drafting / Insert > Object

[slcad]

Has anybody ever used this command at all? Besides the fact that it's not documented (at least I didn't find anything...), the few times I've tried to use it only gave me headaches...

What I'm actually trying to do is to insert a pdf drawing inside a CATDrawing (Insert > Object > Create from File > Browse > pick the pdf file). The output depends on the workstation, day of the week, user's eyes color etc... (sorry for the sarcasm...).

Basically the following things happened so far:

1. Nothing came in; I got the following error message:

2. Something came in, but was not visible, instead only a "black box" was shown (see my old thread back in 2007).

3. PDF image was imported and visible as long as the file was open. Once I saved, closed and reopened the drawing, the above-mentioned "black box" came back...

Moreover, even when I managed to import the pdf file, a very poor quality image came in... see the screen-shots below:

CATIA file:

Compare that to the original PDF file:

The only way I could manage my drawing was by inserting a picture of the pdf file, but never the pdf file directly.

Any suggestions?

Best regards,
Stely

 

[m1mason]

what release are you running?

MTM
CSWA Certified
ATC Certified

CAD Blog

http://mtm-cadtutorials.blogspot.com/

Profile

http://www.linkedin.com/in/mtmcad

 

[slcad]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that...

R18 SP7 BN18 (10-09-2008), both 32-bit and 64-bit
Win XP Pro/Prox64 SP2

Workstations:
Dell 670 /w 4G RAM
IBM Intellistation Z Pro /w 8G RAM

Just for fun, I tried it in R16 SP9, it's the same (shame :-()...

Best regards,
Stely

 

[DBezaire]

Stely,

I think the insert object is meant to be a thumbnail of sorts. Pick on the item (ex pdf) and adobe opens with a clear drawing.

Are you trying to insert these images as details to save time?

Regards,
Derek

 

[slcad]

Derek,

It's a longer story... Mainly it's all about time constraints...

We have received some tools from overseas for 13 different parts. We had received 13 part drawings (as pdf's), needing to be translated. No 3D data, and even if we had it, there was no time to redo all the drawings. So we had to do something quickly...

Now the problem is that we keep receiving updated customer drawings, even after we started producing the parts... In order to keep us up-to-date, we need to include the latest drawing revision in our CATDrawings. So far, we have converted the pdf's into images and then inserted the pictures in our CATDrawing. There is always a trade-off: if you have large pictures, the file size of the drawing will be huge... if you make the image smaller, some text would be unreadable (we're talking about A0 or E size drawings or bigger)...

It seems this is a recurring problem for us (I've posted a similar topic some time ago), so we really need to develop a new procedure if we cannot find a solution to this...

Best regards,
Stely

 

[DBezaire]

Ouch. You are sort of SOL on this, all the more reason to be using 64bit. Just a thought, have you considered possibly doing this in the pdf. Create your design with a low level picture in place. Delete the picture, save as a pdf, then merge the 2 files together with a pdf editor?

Regards,
Derek

 

[ferdo]

Stely,

Can you try a pdf2dwg converter?

Regards
Fernando