What program did I use? Calculate scale

[mrqwest]

Morning all,

At my last place of employment, I used a program where I could convert PDFs to a certain format, and then open that format up in an Autodesk application, find a measurement on the drawing and re-measure (which would always be wrong) but allowed me to set the scale from that dimension.

This was 7 years ago now and I can't for the life of me remember?

Does something like Design Review have a "Calculate scale" function?

[Mistress0fTheDorkness]

At this point, I use a PDF underlay to bring the file into autocad, then I use the scale by reference on a known point on the plan (if it's dimensioned, or a standard door size, etc) to get the pdf up to 1:1 scale and measure that.

[pendean]

There are dozens of PDF to DWG conversion programs for purchase, help yourself: try before you buy though and don't forget the main limitation: garbage in, garbage out (quality of the PDF is key, vector over raster is ideal).

[mrqwest]

Thanks for your help so far!

I don't want to begin converting drawings as that ends up being more than I
actually require. All I'm after is a program that I can open PDFs, identify
a dimension on the drawing (say joinery unit at 3500mm long), measure the
dimension with a particular app and input what it *should be* (in this
example, 3500) and it resizes the drawing to suit allowing me to take off
other dimensions that *aren't* already identified on the PDF.

Does that make sense? I'm sure I used an Autodesk application years ago
that done this.

— Anthony

[Mistress0fTheDorkness]

As I said, I've never used a program for this, but, it can easily be done within AutoCAD 2010 or higher, using the steps I outlined above.