So I'm trying to take a bunch of CAD drawings and make em 'pretty' i.e. poché certain areas, delete some lines, grey topo lines out, give it an overall polish. . .
I am able to open the file in illustrator, both as a dwg and pdf, but I can't figure our for the life of me how to edit what is there, besides deleting. How do I, say, turn all the lines white, or say, poché a wall, etc. . .
if the lines are drawn with the ACAD line tool, use the Live Paint feature in Illustrator to poché the wall. Select all wall line segments in Illustrator and use Live Paint to fill.
Better if you open the DWG in Illustrator as all layers are preserved.
Why not copy & paste the CAD drawing from your CAD software into Illustrator without the normal "open/close/re-open"-thing?
I did this once with my diploma drawings (ok, back in 2000), and it worked fine to enhance the drawings in Illustrator.
Why not enhance the drawings in autocad directly? Seems much easier to hatch and change line thicknesses there. For example, your topo lines probably all are on the same layer, but this will be lost if you plot to PDF.
I agree with a-f. you can acheive the polished results directly from acad. that being said, if you have been able to import the objects into illustrator and simply cannot manipulate them - it seems like maybe you haven't ungrouped the geometry. Illustrator either groups your linework or makes a compound path from your linework - I cant remember which and maybe its both. Try ungrouping or releasing the compound path.
okay, the dirty truth is that i haven't touched autocad since college (WHAT?! it's only cuz i've been on archicad and revit) and am very unfamilier with illustrator (but an indesign experct, i'll have you know).
but those all sound like things that i just may be capable of doing so i thank everyone for their time!!!
dwg/pdf to illustrator
So I'm trying to take a bunch of CAD drawings and make em 'pretty' i.e. poché certain areas, delete some lines, grey topo lines out, give it an overall polish. . .
I am able to open the file in illustrator, both as a dwg and pdf, but I can't figure our for the life of me how to edit what is there, besides deleting. How do I, say, turn all the lines white, or say, poché a wall, etc. . .
TIA y'all!!
If you have it as a pdf just treat it the same way you would an illustrator file.
if the lines are drawn with the ACAD line tool, use the Live Paint feature in Illustrator to poché the wall. Select all wall line segments in Illustrator and use Live Paint to fill.
Better if you open the DWG in Illustrator as all layers are preserved.
Why not copy & paste the CAD drawing from your CAD software into Illustrator without the normal "open/close/re-open"-thing?
I did this once with my diploma drawings (ok, back in 2000), and it worked fine to enhance the drawings in Illustrator.
Eric
Why not enhance the drawings in autocad directly? Seems much easier to hatch and change line thicknesses there. For example, your topo lines probably all are on the same layer, but this will be lost if you plot to PDF.
I agree with a-f. you can acheive the polished results directly from acad. that being said, if you have been able to import the objects into illustrator and simply cannot manipulate them - it seems like maybe you haven't ungrouped the geometry. Illustrator either groups your linework or makes a compound path from your linework - I cant remember which and maybe its both. Try ungrouping or releasing the compound path.
okay, the dirty truth is that i haven't touched autocad since college (WHAT?! it's only cuz i've been on archicad and revit) and am very unfamilier with illustrator (but an indesign experct, i'll have you know).
but those all sound like things that i just may be capable of doing so i thank everyone for their time!!!
Also, you can use the selection options in Illustrator (select by line thickness & hatch color etc) This speeds up the process a little bit.
me thinks you can do all that in CAD
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