PDF?

[John Hope]

Can you import a drawing in PDF and scale it to do estimates?

Thanks,
John

[Allan Chesney]

Hi John,

You cannot import a PDF directly into TFP but you could enlarge the PDF on the screen so that it fills the screen with the plan you want and the use the Screen Print key on your keyboard to copy it.  Then simply paste it into a photo editing program (or Microsoft Paint that comes with Windows) and save it as a JPG.   You can then import the JPG into TFP, scale it and trace it.

There are also not some PDF to DXF converters around (one on the Envisioneer, IMSI Design or TurboCAD site I think) that will allow you to make it into a DXF file.  DXF is even easier. Can those who supplied the original PDF provide it in DXF format?  If they are CAD drawings then they should be able to extract just the plan for you (even leaving off layers of information that will otherwise clutter it) giving you a cleaner image to trace.  With DXF you also do not have to worry about scaling it.  I would try first approaching the team that produced the PDF and get a DXF version of the plan itself.  They do that for me with no hesitation.

The Materials List / Estimates will be produced as you trace the plan of course.

Allan

[Draft Patrick]

John,

Some additional notes

1 - If you have a PDF Editor (as Adobe Acrobat, for example) you can crop your plan and export it as jpg or bmp and import this file to TFP
2 - As Allan stated, there are several programs converting raster images to vector files. Or PDF to DXF. TurboCad (v17 and up) has a built in converter, however the results are not "magic" or at least "good"

Anyway, in all the situations you will be importing the just images of the floorplans, not the entire project. For this reason, in order to produce the BOM and / or the Estimations you need to 'build" your project with TFP. In other words if you import the floorplan, you need to draw the walls, floors, roofs, etc and set the properties, materials, etc. After this,TFP will compile all the setting and create a master document with all the elements

Pat

[Jack Zimmer]

Hi John,

By Estimates , I assume you are looking at things like lineal ft or square ft. There are no tools in the program that would then convert those items to say # of 2x4 or Sheets of sheathing / drywall/ or yards of concrete. Those figures are generated directly from the model.

But there is a 'Measure' tool that gives you a running total length. So you could import an image of a PDF file, resize it to scale and then measure all perimeter walls. Divide by 4 multiple x 3 and you have all 2x4 at 16" o/c. Divide by 4 and you have all sheets of plywood (at 8' in height) etc.

So, if your use to using formulas you could use the measure tool for running totals of exterior and inteior walls. Minus of course any openings , plus any corners. The running total x3 divided by plate length would give you number of plates.

And there is also a Room region tool that lets you define a room by picking points on the image and generating Area/ Perimeter and Volume. Which is good for a number of things.

But in general if you import an image, rather than use those tools, you may as well just use a series of walls and then get a materails output file.

Jack