"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field." - Niels Bohr.
The current version of Scan2CAD is v7.2c.
If you are a registered user of Scan2CAD v7, you can upgrade to v7.2c free of charge - click here for more information.
If you are a registered user of Scan2CAD v6.1 or earlier, you can upgrade to v7.2c at the upgrade price - click here for more information.
You can see which version of Scan2CAD you have by going to the Help Menu then choosing About Scan2CAD.
The Boeing Company of Huntington Beach, California, has purchased additional licences of Scan2CAD v7 Pro while upgrading existing seats. This sale more than doubles the number of Scan2CAD v7 Pros installed at Boeing NASA Systems and makes them the largest user site in the USA. Boeing NASA Systems use Scan2CAD v7 Pro to convert their many old, large, often fairly poor quality paper drawings of wiring installations into a DXF file for editing in CATIA.
Scan2CAD is widely used by scanning and reprographics companies worldwide. Two such companies are CAD Unlimited in Arizona, USA, and Alan Darbyshire's CAD Services in the UK.
Located in sunny Arizona, CAD Unlimited Inc has been providing large format printing and CAD services for 12 years. George Gann, the owner, uses a 11x17" scanner and a Vidar 40" wide scanner with Scan2CAD. "Your software really pays off" he says. George has been using Scan2CAD since v5. "What's funny is that we have yet to look at the Scan2CAD manual. We have had the most impressive results just by installing and using the software. Just think how good we could get if we actually read the manual!" George says that the difference in quality between v5 and v7 made the decision to upgrade "a no-brainer!"
(We have recommended to George that he download our Hints & Tips sheet because it is [a] full of useful time saving advice and [b] 301 pages shorter than the manual!!)
Alan Darbyshire's cheerful greeting welcomed many British CAD users to CADlogic's booth at UK construction industry exhibitions. His long association with CADlogic ended recently when he started his own CAD services business in the scenic Peak District. Alan now provides training on AutoCAD and CADlogic's AutoCAD architectural add-ons. He offers a "first quality" drafting service that recreates old drawings as new and a scanning and conversion service using an A0 scanner and Scan2CAD. He recently won a contract to scan 10,000 drawings for a large UK electrical products manufacturer. He has done similar work for UK local authorities. "I am continually asked about scanning and vectorizing drawings into CAD" he says.
Based on his experiences of editing DXF files created from poor quality scans, Alan has contributed October's Quick Tip. See below.
If you've vectorized a poor quality scan and ended up with a messy DXF file you can still use it to quickly build up a drawing in CAD. Scan2CAD user Alan Darbyshire describes how.
"I use Scan2CAD on every contract drafting job I do. As I am supposed to be redrafting a drawing from scratch my customers expect 100% first quality but to save myself time I use Scan2CAD to do 80% of the work and I do the rest, thus ensuring that the final results are perfect.
"The problem is that 99% of the drawings I get are copies, not originals. When I scan these poor quality copies and convert them in Scan2CAD the results are not as good as if I was working from the original master drawing. Fortunately, I've developed a way around this problem which has proved very useful when I'm redrawing a very messy DXF file.
"Once Scan2CAD has created the DXF file I import this into the CAD software. In my case, it's AutoCAD. The method I use is as follows. I place the Scan2CAD DXF geometry onto a faint colored layer that I call 'S2C', dark gray if it's on a black background. Then I create another layer, which I call 'Trace' and make this white. Next, I change all of the perfect geometry from the 'S2C' layer onto 'Trace'. The easiest way to do this is to just select the 'S2C' entities, then pick the 'Trace' layer. This is a standard method of moving geometry form one layer to another in AutoCAD.
"Very quickly I am able to build up the detail required. Note that I am not drawing over the 'S2C' layer, simply changing it to the 'Trace' layer. I use AutoCAD's Offset and Fillet Zero commands to tidy up and modify the Scan2CAD DXF file, plus I am able to 'snap' to the Scan2CAD geometry to add or tidy any items as required. I don't have to start from a clean sheet in CAD. It is surprising how quickly I can build up the detail. Afterwards, I just delete the leftover entities on the 'S2C' layer using AutoCAD's Properties 'Funnel' to search for all the 'S2C' entities.
"This method allows me to complete the drawing in around half the time it takes to redraw it from scratch. The result is an accurate drawing that I can email to my customer who can carry out his amendments in turn.
"When the master drawing is good and I scan it correctly, I have a lot less work to do afterwards. If you have an architectural drawing it is of paramount importance that you scan it in straight as this will affect the results you get. Yes, you can rotate a skew drawing in Scan2CAD but if you scan it in straight in the first place it will save you an additional step in the tidying-up process later on.
"Scan2CAD has saved me a lot of time and given me a rapid payback on my investment. It really does help me get my work done more quickly!"
Thanks Alan!
Spell Check Poem
(Read it out loud!)
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea,
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight for it two say,
Weather eye and wring oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long,
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no,
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
-Sauce unknown
"Scan2CAD has paid for itself a thousandfold. Quite honestly it paid for itself on one job."
C. Hawkins
"I have not found any other product that exceeds yours in terms of utility and reliability ... it works as advertised which is rare for this kind of product."
M. Kroeker
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