AutoCAD 2010/2011/2012 DWG Format

[#1]

I'm using AutoCAD 2012 with a new HP Z400 computer with 6.1 Gb ram and an Invidia Quadro  2000 grpahics card. When I insert a 203 kb pdf as an underlay, my performace is like molasses. What can I configure ro speed this up? I have saved this pdf as a tiff image which works much better but there must be a way of using pdfs.

[#2]

There have certainly been reports of such sluggish behavior, but it usually has to do with the content of the PDF in question.

• Does this happen with any/all PDFs you have?  
• Does this happen even with a brand new drawing file?  
• Does AutoCAD behave sluggishly when you work with drawings that do not contain PDF underlays?  

One possible workaround would be to hide the object if it is not necessary to work with it in the drawing.  If it is only necessary for plotting purposes, you could turn it back on then.  With the newest versions of AutoCAD, you can simply select the PDF, right-click, Isolate, Hide Objects.  Alternately, you could unload the reference (within the External References palette) or turn off/freeze the layer on which the PDF reference resides.

If you would like for us to see if we can confirm the behavior here with your file, please feel free to either attach the PDF in this forum thread, or submit a support request with the file attached. 

[#3]

Zac,

Thanks for the reply. I've attched the dwg that contains the pdf underlay as well as the pdf itself. The pdf in the drawing seems to slow down just about everything I do, especially panning and zooming. The pdf properties shows it as Version 1.4 (Acrobat 5.x), possibly the problem. Newer pdf's aren't a problem so I'm guessing the version is the cause of all the trouble.

[#4]

"I'm guessing the version is the cause of all the trouble."

Actually the cause of all the trouble is an excessively high resolution image, scanned or possibly rasterized (plot to image) since it's so well ortho oriented.  The image is 25216x18000, thats 453,888,000 pixels!  If that image is extracted and down-sampled it performs somewhat better, especially since you're able to trim the excess (border, etc).

Of course that resolution and ortho orientation makes for a decent vectorization, if you've got the tools.

[#5]

Terry,

Other than saving the pdf as an earlier version (4.0) how do I "extract and down-sample" the image?

[#6]

In Adobe Acrobat, if you select the image (crop it first) and right click, it has a 'Save Image As' option.  Under File > Save there is an option for a PNG file, which may downsample in the process (didn't try it).

I used our ToolPac product to extract the image and vectorize it.

Of course the best solution is for the creator to provide you a DWG file.

[#7]

Thanks Terry. I'll just save the older pdf's as TIFF files. I can't snap to the older versions anyway.