Hi,
welcome @forums.autodesk.com!
Scanning is the first process to get the paper as raster image, as digital data (of pixels, not vectors)
Then there are different aproaches how you can work with paper plans:
Then you can insert the raster files in the background of your (new) drawing files, scale it so it is displayed in the correct measurement.
- You can now draw over that raster file, just the modifications you need and plot both together, new vectors (this area should be masked so that raster image does not appear in that new area) and the scanned content (working "hybrid", raster and vector mixed)
- You can use tools like RasterDesign, that can help you to convert your raster image to vector objects, whereas this is not an automatic way, just helpfull tools like objectsnap to raster content and so make it easier to draw as fast as possible. The advantage with that is that you can decide how you generate new geometry, which layer, which blocks, which other geometry type, ... and you can enter exact dimensions!
- You might find "automatic converters" from raster to vector, but there you'll get dummy geometry, no dimensions, no blocks, not correct layers and, maybe most important, incorrect distances as such converters depend on the pixels and not on any dimension text which a human can read on the scan.
Advantage/Disadvantage
- The advantage of the hybrid option is that all new parts are well structured and you don't need time for the neighbourhood to get it plotted, the disadvantage might be that you need the drawing as well as the raster file, one alone will not plot the whole project.
- The advantage of the manual way is that you can draw in your known structure, all object types are correct (e.g. dimensions, doors, windows, ... all are the correct types which can't be recognized by raster-to-vector converters), disadvantage is the time needed to get them done.
- The advantage of the automatic way is the speed, the disadvantage is it is fully unstructured
HTH, - alfred -
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Alfred NESWADBA
ISH-Solutions GmbH / Ingenieur Studio HOLLAUS
www.ish-solutions.at ...
blog.ish-solutions.at ...
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CDay 2025------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(not an Autodesk consultant)