Plot error PNG and JPG

[artfx-events]

Hi there,

When I use the standard plot setting "to web JPG' or "to web PNG" I get corupted files like shown in the attatchment.

Does anyone know what the problem can be.

My papersizes are A0 and A3.

Thanks in advanced.

Christian

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

welcome @forums.autodesk.com!

Which software, version, service pack and operating system do you use?

Can you reproduce that with every drawing or just a specific DWG? Try it with a new drawing, based on an original AutoCAD template, draw a line and plot it.

- alfred -

[artfx-events]

Hi Alfred,

Thanks for your reaction.
I'm using autocad 2017, service pack 1 on windows 10.

I've got the problem with serveral drawings. Sometimes it happnes sometime it doesn't. It's kind of enoying when I'm publishing like 40 pages in 4 hour and als plots are like this.

I hope you can help.



ArtFX Events BV
Christian Lehota
ArtFX Events BV
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1043AJ Amsterdam
M: + 31 6 14 39 48 76
E: christian@artfx-events.nl
url: www.artfx-events.nl
ArtFX Events BV and ArtFX Productions BV are companies registered in The Netherlands under Chamber of Commerce numbers 57952450 and 62990365.Confidentiality Notice: The contents of this e-mail are confidential to the ordinary user of the e-mailaddress to which it was addressed, and may also be privileged. If you are not the addressee of this e-mail you may not copy, forward, disclose or otherwise use it or any part of it in any form whatsoever. If you have received this e-mail in error, please e-mail the sender by replying to this message.Terms and Conditions: All offers, requests for proposal, orders, (verbal) agreements, negotiations, agreements towards delivery of goods and services and additonal business are subject to our General Terms and Conditons for the purpose of Purchase, Sales and Rental. these Terms and Conditions are deposited at the Chamber of Commerce in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. A copy of the Terms and Conditions will be send to you upon request. And is also available as pdf on our website.

[john.vellek · Accepted solution]

Hi artfx-events

Welcome to the Community!

I have been looking through the Knowledge base and some users had better success plotting to PNG if they reduced the resolution to 4000x2800.  Can you try this setting and let me know the results?

Please hit the Accept as Solution button if my post fully solves your issue or answers your question.

[elshawadfy · Accepted solution]

If you still need a higher reolution than John suggested, or didn't find a direct solution, here is a workarround that you can try:

1- Plot to PDF

2- Download Gimp (a free photo editor)

3- Open the pdf in Gimp: it will ask about width and length and resolution, adjust the latter to your liking..

4- From File menu select export, then save it as *.png..

This will give you the resolution you want..

[john.vellek]

Hi @artfx-events,

I am checking back to see if my post or others helped you with your problem. Please add a post with your results so other Forum users can benefit.

Please hit the Accept as Solution button if a post or posts fully solved your issue or answered your question.

[renata.antunes.cwb]

Hello,

I've been looking for the same issue resolution with no success. I am trying to plot out an A4 sheet as JPG our PNG and no luck. I try to use the suggested resolution for this size and add it to the plotter but the image gets distorted. When I just use one of the defaults it plots right, but it is annoying that the resolution is not the best. If it was a greater sheet that would be useless.
I do remember of doing this same procedure when working with big sheet sizes and it used to work perfectly. I guess it's a processing issue with the new AutoCAD versions. I am using 2018.
Although there are some options for exporting image from PDF files, it would be rather handy to be able to use the native tool. If anyone has found a solution please share!

[john.vellek]

HI @renata.antunes.cwb,

Can you please explain the desired end result?  The defacto archival standard is now PDF rather than a raster format.  I am happy to see if we might be optimize the process for you if I understand the outcome.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[renata.antunes.cwb]

Hi John,

The result I am looking for is an image file which should preferably be an A4 format that will be inserted in an Word document, or otherwise an image in any size but with good resolution that could be sized inside the program. What I am having is an image similar to the one posted, a distorted drawing - I don't have it right now to post. 
I know the standard is PDF but in this case specifically it would be better to have an image file.
Like I said, it has worked out before with big sheet sizes, I used to have a good result by using the suggested size in pixels, but I have noticed this issue a while ago, it's just seems not to want to do that.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

Which version of AutoCAD do you have (please post a screenshot from command _ABOUT).

Have you tried both, JPG as well as PNG or just JPG?

When you say it was working previously ... what changed?

Which resolution are you using to create the raster file?

>> I know the standard is PDF but in this case specifically it

>> would be better to have an image file.

You are losing the scalability of the content when plotting to a raster file instead to a vector file, keep that in mind.

- alfred -

[john.vellek]

Hi @renata.antunes.cwb,

I plotted to PNG and to PDF with similar results.  I have attached a Word doc that shows a variety of images.  Can you share a drawing and I can see what kind of settings might work for your workflow?

[renata.antunes.cwb]

Hello John and Alfred

Thank you for your reply and for making the tests.

Can you pass your e-mail address, so I send you the file I am working with, since I cannot publish it here?

I am attaching the images that I am getting when trying to publish in PNG and JPG here. 
What I am doing is: I have a layout set to an A4 sheet and with the plotter DWG to PDF. When I change to an image output it suggests the size 2480.5 x 3508 pixels that should be the correct proportion and a good resolution for this layout and adds it to the list as "User previous paper size". I couldn't add myself a paper size for these particular plotters. If I try choosing one of the sizes that come as default - 1600 x 1280 - the biggest that is available, I have the result as attached (I have tried with and without scale lineweight ticked). 
The result is not very bad (for this sheet size) but I just thought having my doubt cleared about this. Also it is necessary to crop the image since the proportion is different. It is just frustrating that I cannot be a smooth process, without needing to use any other tool or export from PDF.

I am aware that by using image file I don't have a scalable drawing, but this is not required for this particular task I am trying to accomplish. Plus my client is going to put the images in a Word file as part of a report and by setting the page as full bleed and sizing the image properly it will be pretty accurate.

I am currently using AutoCAD Civil 3D 2018, built on O.49.0.0 AutoCAD 2018. When I say it worked previously it was back when I used maybe 2014 version. I am not a big user of AutoCAD anymore.
I don't have plain AutoCAD installed currently, but I tried to open C3D as AutoCAD for that and it also didn't work. Though, I did try to make a drawing from scratch, with a simple rectangle, and plot it and yes it goes right. So I am afraid it is something in the file that I am using. But I remember trying it a while ago (maybe 2016 version) with the same result and ended up doing the PDF to JPG conversion. But this time it is about many pages so I decided to seek help.

Thank you, anyways!

[renata.antunes.cwb]

Hi @Alfred.NESWADBA

I have answered in the other post.

Thank you.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Can you pass your e-mail address

Sorry, I don't publish my email address, you might upload your dwg-dataset to A360, DropBox or other cloud service and send the link to the download via private messages here.

>> I couldn't add myself a paper size for these particular plotters

Please look to that screenshot, it shows you how you can add individual paper formats to your PC3

>> I am currently using AutoCAD Civil 3D 2018, built on O.49.0.0 AutoCAD 2018

That means you have missed a lot of service-packs/updates for your AutoCAD, please install these updates, for AutoCAD that is currently 2018.1.2 (also install the ones for Map3D as well as Civil 3D, best to be done using Autodesk Desktop App)

- alfred -

[renata.antunes.cwb]

Hi @Alfred.NESWADBA,

Thank you for your reply. I am going to send you that way.

I did try to add a new paper size that way, but the add button is not available.

I had checked my software updates with Autodesk Desktop App and it says it is updated. I also didn't find any service pack in the application download page but the Geolocation hotfix. Now I have just seen in my management page that there are updates available
I will try to do that and will let you know the results later.

Cheers!

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> but the add button is not available.

Can you send the same screenshot I have sent (plotter selected ==> properties ==> "custom paper sizes" selected) so I can see your settings?

>> I had checked my software updates with

>> Autodesk Desktop App and it says it is updated

Then please get in contact with your contract manager (to Autodesk products) as he/she might have disabled the option to get updates via Desktop App.

You might also look to https://manage.autodesk.com and find the updates there.

- alfred -

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

thx for your drawing (even if you might first kill the raster images from geolocation, would have been much smaller then).

What I'm missing is the CTB as well as 2 referenced png-files (logos?), so my plot would be different to yours.

May I ask which layout you have prepared to plot to JPG or PNG? All layouts in the drawing are set to PDF.

Also to compare your result (which you wrote is distorted) can you upload that image?

- alfred -

[renata.antunes.cwb]

Hi Alfred,

Thank you again for checking my case.

---

@Alfred.NESWADBA wrote:

Hi,

>> but the add button is not available.

Can you send the same screenshot I have sent (plotter selected ==> properties ==> "custom paper sizes" selected) so I can see your settings?

>> I had checked my software updates with

>> Autodesk Desktop App and it says it is updated

Then please get in contact with your contract manager (to Autodesk products) as he/she might have disabled the option to get updates via Desktop App.

You might also look to https://manage.autodesk.com and find the updates there.

- alfred -

---

Yes, I have now downloaded all the software updates from my management page and installed all of them, but still the problem persists.
It's weird that there are no restrictions since I am the contract manager.

The only change is that now the add button was available and was able to create new paper sizes on these plotters, but the outcome is still the same. By doing that it also occurred to me to try setting up the layouts permanently for one of the image plotters output and to to batch plot them, but - guess what - no luck.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> but the outcome is still the same

Using which driver in PLOT dialog, which image resolution for which layout ... and how does the result look like, currently I don't know what you get.

- alfred -

[renata.antunes.cwb]

Hi,

 I am attaching the used CTB here. The logos are actually not used in this layout. In this file, only the one called 'LOCACAO' is to be ploted as image. I'm sorry I didn't mention it because I attached an image of the related layout in the previous post.

I did'nt set the layout as JPG or PNG because I still need to generate PDFs from them. So I was just going to go >print and then change on the go. But as I mentioned in the other post, by being able to add a paper size I could benefit from setting the layout permanently in this format, but unfortunately it doesn't work anyway.

I am sorry that I didn't kill the images before sending. I was in another computer and just downloaded it from my drive. I have now faced another problem though. I just completed the task I needed and added over 50 layouts like that and after doing that I thought sending you so you could check, BUT now I couldn't navigate to Model space anymore. The software just stops working when I try to. All the layout spaces are normal and I edited everything directly in the viewports, but the model crashed. I think it just got mad at me. It would be a real trouble if I didn't have anther version of the file working. Lucky these layouts are for a specific purpose and it's best being in a different file anyway.