I am trying to insert a PDF or a JPEG into my drawing sheet but the quality is terrible. Has anyone found a way to do this and keep a good quality print?
I am still on SW2007 here. I recently updated our logo on our templates, and it was a bit of a hassle. Only BMP files work. Our logo, which is scales to 40mm[×]20mm, is 300[×]150 pixels in size. On the drawing, it looks okay, but not great.
No artwork looks good when it is scaled up. This is especially true of bitmaps.
I am currently using Soldworks 2010 SP2.0 and the pdf I am trying to insert has been created in "high quality" and does not need scaled when it comes in. However the quality is very poor when inserted into my drawing sheet.
Was your PDF created from a vector graphic, or a bitmap? A PDF based on vector graphics, should scale perfectly. If you converted from a bitmap, the quality of the original bitmap is the best you ever will do.
I think it was created straight from solidworks. PDF of a drawing. Quality is great and inserts perfectly and scales perfectly in AutoCad but not in Solidworks.
You may be encountering a SW glitch that I need to work around from time to time.
But first - be extra sure that your source image is of a high enough resolution to look good (200-300 DPI).
I find SW 2010 drawings love to default to screen resolution (72 DPI) maybe less - whatever it is it looks like crap. HLR views are fine since it seems to use vector lines when printing, the problem comes when you try to print a 'shaded' or 'shaded with edges' view. It may be that SW is treating your inserted picture the same way.
Workaround: Use File --> Save as and save your drawing as a .pdf. In the Save as dialogue click options, set 'Shaded/Draft geometry DPI' to 300. Print your new .pdf from Acrobat.
You lose anti-aliasing on your image, but your black lines remain vectors, which saves file size if you are emailing .pdfs of your drawings to people.
Thanks again for the replies. I created a pdf with a dpi of 1200!! I then inserted that file into solidworks and hey presto.....the same poor quality as previous!
I am now convinced it is not the pdf file itself but the way Solidworks handles the insertion of the pdf file. This has been a problem since solidworks 2004 but I've always found a work around...not this time though!
Your pdf file is a vector graphic. Solidworks does not support it. So, it converts it into a pixellated image upon insertion. I do not see there is a control of pixel resolutions.
