Subtitles of the Movie

We're now going to look at Non-Native File Support in AutoCAD 2010. There's been some additional enhancements here. If you look at your Output Tab on the Ribbon, you'll notice we've got Export to DWF PDF there. There's a lot of support now for PDF. PDF is a very commonly-used file format, especially with CAD users. Now, let's have a look now more importantly at inserting non-native files into AutoCAD DWGs themselves. Let's go to the Insert Tab here and what we're going to do is I'm going to expand the Reference Panel out, click on the Pin there to hold it open and then click on this Arrow here, the External References Arrow to open up my External References Palette. Now, you'll notice there I've got my drawing there. That's my 12 Non-Native File Support Drawing here. That's open already. But let's say I want to attach an image file; let's say a JPEG file. If I click there and go Attach Image, there's a JPEG I prepared earlier. If I click there it says Autodesk SR. The SR stands for San Rafael. You'll see why in a minute. I select the JPEG, click on Open and it gives me the Attach Image Dialog Box. I'm going to set it as a Relative Path because the JPEG is in the same folder as the 12 Non-Native File Drawing. Insertion Point, I'm going to specify that on the screen. Scale, I'm going to leave it at its original scale. I click on OK, bring the edge of the drawing like so onto the appropriate layer and there is my Google Screen Dump from Google Earth showing the Autodesk San Rafael headquarters in California. So any copyrights there belong to Google and Autodesk. This is purely an image that I'm using for reference purposes. So that's loaded an image file, a JPEG file. What about PDF support? Let's do the same again. Click on the Arrow here and you'll notice we now have an Attach PDF option. If I click there, it'll go to a folder where there is actually an Autodesk SR PDF as well. So I'll select the PDF file, click on Open and again, it'll be a Relative Path because it's in the same folder as the drawing. Insertion Point I'll specify on the screen. Scale I'll leave as one and I'll click on OK. In comes my PDF there, left click and there it is. Now, the difference there is this is a full JPEG. This is actually an A4 in your Model Tab, so hence it's quite small. If I zoom in though, you can see it has the same level of detail as you can see as the JPEG. It's just a smaller image. So if I just pan there you can see those two images coexist very happily as you can see there on the External References Palette. What I can do though is I can select that there and notice, look. Low and behold on the Ribbon, now it changes. I can change the Transparency of the objects. If I just close the External Reference Palette there for a moment, what I can do now is I could also add Clipping Boundaries. So if I create a Clipping Boundary there and clip let's say around the Autodesk Headquarters there, there's my Clipping Boundary. I can invert that boundary just by clicking on the arrow. I can remove the Clipping Boundary and that brings the original image back. I can also turn up brightness. Look. I can make it brighter. Can you see that? By clicking on the Drag Arrows there. So there's a huge amount of support now for non-native files. I can change the contrast. As you can see, it gets a bit colorful there. If I drag it all the way back, it goes to a very black color there. You can see that there. So I can change those colors to enhance my drawing. Maybe turn the contrast and the brightness down like so so that I can draw objects actually on top of that non-native image. I can also do that with the PDF as well. Let's zoom in on that a little bit. So I'll just pan across and zoom in. Same process; I can do exactly the same thing. I can click on it here you'll notice but because it's different, I get a slightly different PDF Underlay Tab this time. So what I can do there is I can change the fade. As you can see, I'm fading it out and fading it in. I can display it in monochrome if I wish, which is great because then what I can do is go back to my Home Tab and maybe draw on a layer that's red. So let's create a new layer. Let's just call it New for now and I'll make that red. So I'll give that a red color like so and I'll also make that the Current Layer. So if I just double click there like that, close the Layer Properties Manager, I can now draw on the top of that. If I zoom in a bit, I might want to draw let's say a polyline just around that building line and look. You can see the red line appearing and you can see now, because it's in monochrome, it stands out. Now, I'm not being very accurate here. This is purely for speed. But you can see there, look. As I drag around, I can click and I can click. Now, what I can do here, if I just right click and enter that polyline there, if I come out a little bit and select the PDF, look. I can enable Snaps like so. So I can actually snap to objects on the PDF if they're there in the original PDF that I bring into the drawing. Let's just hit Escape there to deselect that now and zoom out. There's my two non-native files there and what I'm going to do now is finish this exercise just by saying that the support now for non-native files in AutoCAD 2010 is just so much better. It makes your life so much easier; quicker, productive and more effective.