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Importing
AutoCAD files into Illustrator
AutoCAD
files can be successfully opened in Illustrator, but
two types of important information will be lost or corrupted:
1.
Hatched areas will disappear entirely.
2.
Line widths can be imported, but often become altered
or lost altogether.
Both
of these problems can be overcome.
1.
Hatched areas can be re-created in Illustrator as long
as they are surrounded by one, continuous, unbroken
polyline. This outline will import into Illustrator
and can be quickly re-filled. If the outline of a hatched
area consists of more than one line and/or polyline
they can be joined using the "edit polyline" command.
Ideally all outlines of hatched areas of a specific
colour should be on one, clearly labelled, layer together.
2.
To re-create line widths all of the lines in the artwork
are set to a width of zero in AutoCAD. They will then
successfully import into Illustrator. It must be clear
what width the lines should be, so that they can be
widened back out to the correct width once the file
has been opened in Illustrator. Ideally all lines of
a specific width and colour should be on one, clearly
labelled, layer together.
To
avoid having to deal with each individual component
of an artwork separately in Illustrator it is very important
that the AutoCAD file is organised so that components
can be dealt with in groups.
Examples:
The boundaries of every red hatched area in the artwork
should be on one layer together.
Every
blue line with a width of 0.4mm in the artwork should
be on a single layer.
These
layers must not contain any objects other than the one
type of object that they are intended for. If they do,
when the objects in the layer are re-created in Illustrator
the same process will be applied to the extra objects
in the layer. This will result in unwanted objects appearing
in the final artwork.
Examples:
If construction lines with an intended width of zero,
which are not intended to show up on the finished artwork,
are left on a layer with lines that are intended to
be 0.5mm they will be widened to 0.5mm along with the
lines that should be that width. This will result in
unwanted 0.5mm lines appearing in the final artwork.
If
a partial outline of a hatched area or even a single
line is left underneath, or on top of, a full outline,
Illustrator will attempt to fill the partial outline
as well as any full outlines on the layer. This will
result in unwanted partial objects obscuring all or
part of the intended objects in the finished artwork.
If
construction/guide lines, which are not intended to
show up in the final artwork, are created in the drawing
process, they should be confined to their own separate
layers so that they can easily be turned off or deleted.
Complex
Objects
Although filled objects with holes in can be created
in Illustrator it is time consuming if there are more
than a very few objects, as each object must be individually
created. It is much quicker and easier to create the
effect of a complex object by putting solid objects
of different colours on top of each other.
Example:
(see illustration)
To create a black door, with grey panel-edge detail
and black panels a solid black oblong is first created
for the door. A smaller grey oblong is put on top of
this to provide the panel-edge detail. Four, still smaller,
black oblongs are finally put on top of this to provide
the panels.
The
different levels of fill required to create a complex
object must be separated out into different layers as
shown, even if they are of the same colour, so that
they can be arranged into the correct order to accurately
re-create the entire object in Illustrator.
If
an AutoCAD drawing is carefully organised, in the way
described here, it takes little time, even for large
and complex images, to re-create the entire artwork
in Illustrator.
We are happy to include this process in the basic cost
of producing a transfer.
If the drawing is not produced in this way it can take
several hours of computer time to make the artwork suitable.
We charge for this time at a rate of £42.00+V.A.T. per
hour (minimum charge 1 hour), effective from 25th January
2008.
If
you are unable to produce artwork in the recommended
manner and are unwilling to pay for it to be converted,
we can produce negatives using a repro-camera. This
does not require importing the file into Illustrator.
We accept no responsibility for any loss of quality
or accuracy that results.
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