Help inserting CAD drawings into Visio!!

[Amy E.]

Help!! I posted a comment 2 mos. ago & no bites! I hope someone can help me
this time...

I'm writing a technical manual that requires me to insert a CAD drawing into
Visio and then place arrows on top of the CAD drawing object as callouts for
specific items on the drawing (i.e., insert a picture of a CPU and draw an
arrow to call out the CD drive). Then I save the file as a WMF so I can
import it into my word processing software.

However, when I CROP the CAD object, the object no longer exports to the WMF
file. Only the Visio object (the call outs) export. The CAD object is still
visible and editable in Visio. I can see it in other graphics formats (i.e.,
JPEG or GIF). But the resolution on JPEG & GIF isn't high enough, which is
why I save the files as WMFs. I don't have AutoCAD on my machine, so I can't
do the editing before bringing the CAD files into Visio. I tried converting
the CAD object into a Visio object, but that doesn't work. I tried saving it
as a 2002 or 2003 .vsd file and then converting to a WMF from there, but that
didn't work, either. I tried inserting the CAD object into one Visio workbook
and then copying & pasting it into a new Visio workbook, no dice. I even
tried editing & cropping the image in its own Visio file, saving that as a
WMF (and in that case, the object does export as a WMF), then inserting the
WMF into a new Visio file and adding the callouts... and even in that case,
the CAD object doesn't convert. I've tried grouping the objects, adding them
to all layers, saving with nothing in the file selected, saving with all
objects in the files selected, and nothing.

This is getting to the mission-critical point for me... please, somebody,
help me!!

 

[driller]

Hi Amy E.

To offset cropping

After the Insert>CAD Drawing>"path and filename"
see CAD drawing properties

right click mouse, format>protection>none
right click mouse, shape>Ungroup

delete all that you do not need, you may need to regroup again...

if there are high-resolution objects within the whole object, you may need
to copy - paste it the object from Visio to other photo/picture editing
software..then copy-paste again...

trying is your best bet.

regards,
driller

 

[Amy E.]

I tried what you wrote, but when I right-click on the object & try to ungroup
it, I get the error message: "An error (1411) occurred during the action
Ungroup. There was an error reading or writing the OLD data." It won't let me
ungroup the object.

 

[driller]

Hi amy,

that's common.

Try some ways..
1. Open a new file and do it all from the start., try not to copy/paste the
Cad drawing between your old and new visio file.

or, 2. Re-install your visio program.

regards,
driller

 

[nrdgrl]

If I'm not too late, here are a few ideas. Both require you to make a PDF
file of your CAD drawing first. From there, you can convert the PDF either
into a high-resolution bitmap (GIF or PNG are better than JPEG for line
drawings) and use it as a background layer to make your call-outs on. The
second option is to convert it to a vector format like DXF or WMF and then
open it in Visio where you can ungroup and edit it. To create the high-res
bitmap (300 dpi should do), you can use a tool like pdf2image.com. To create
a vector file, pdf2picture.com. pdf2image is very straight-forward. If you
are going to use one of the vector formats via pdf2picture or pdf2cad, you
need to run through a few steps once you have the file in Visio. The
instructions can be found at:
pdf2picture (WMF):
http://www.visual-integrity.com/pdf/wmf-results-in-Visio.pdf
pdf2cad (DXF): http://www.visual-integrity.com/pdf/dxf-results-in-Visio.pdf
Hope this helps!