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andreajmz
Participant
May 29, 2023
Question

Vector from autocad showing distorted in illustrator

  • May 29, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 2216 views

Hi, Adobe Support Community

I'm in a bit of trouble, i'm an architect and everytime i've needed to illustrate my blueprints i'd just copy them from autocad and paste them in illustrator and they've always worked perfectly, but i'm not sure what's happening now cause they all look distorted and undone whenever i do it now. it's really weird, even maybe two weeks ago i still did it and it worked fine. i even tried a different file and it does the same. HELP PLEASE! (the first picture is when i pasted the vectors to illustrator like two weeks ago, the second is when i pasted the vectors to illustrator today and the PDF file is how it's supposed to look -i'm not using pdf because it kinda looks dull when i illustrate it and paste it to indesign-) (PS. I may or may not changed the line thickness this past week in the autocad file because of some pdf printing issues and cleanliness of the lines, so i'm not sure if it has to do with that) I really need help with this cause it's what have been keeping me behind in my workflow.

Thanks in Advance.

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1 reply

B
Community Expert
Bobby HendersonCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 29, 2023

Was either version of AutoCAD or Adobe Illustrator updated between the time your copying operations were working fine and then went bad?

 

In my own experience, AutoCAD and other rival CAD applications have never generated artwork that was friendly to a graphic design oriented vector design environment. I work in the sign industry and have had to re-build plenty of building store fronts from "exploded" CAD files to create a building sign design. The CAD file would contain mostly thousands of separate two point line segments and then maybe some filled closed path objects. I'd lock down the CAD-based art on one layer and re-build clean, closed vector shapes over the top of it. The Arc and Line and Poly-line metaphors CAD applications use are very different from the Bezier-based vectors in graphics applications like Adobe Illustrator. It seems only natural that any minor update in either AutoCAD or Illustrator (or the host operating system) could throw everything for a loop.

 

Generally speaking, if a client is wanting to send me a digital file of a store front and has AutoCAD files, I'll usually ask for them to export a PDF from AutoCAD. The DXF and DWG files are often harder to import into Illustrator or other rival graphics applications than a PDF. Even if the PDF looks "dull" as long as the dimensions scale out correctly that's what matters on my end. Then again that's my own use case too.

A
andreajmzAuthor
Participant
May 29, 2023

Hmm, Not really, both programs were updated before this happened 😕😕 i only updated some windows 11 stuff but i don't think that could be it.

 

And yes, good news is that for executive blueprints i'm fine with the PDF that comes straight from autocad but for conceptual matters like more creative, aesthetic stuff that needs color schemes and diagrams, presentations etc. i think the line that shows in the pdf is quite faded, if i can't find the fix for this issue i might make the line bolder and darker in autocad and see if the line in the pdf gets better, but still i don't think that's the honest solution. what I'm looking for is either try to make it as it used to be (also not sure if i clicked on some button or command that changed something that might be giving me thoose horrific lines) or like find the "REGEN"*(autocad command) command for illustrator to fix the distortions.  

 

Thanks though

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