The Ability to crop DWF views

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Description: I'd like a simple tool to crop or more easily control the extent of the visible information in a DWF page. Even if it works something like the tools in MS Publisher where it doesn't alter the underlying information but just hides it behind a 'white out' border.

How Used: I want to use DWF to create snapshot views of Revit drawing sheets to issue as detail revisions or clarification sketches. Revisions are made in the Revit model and a revision cloud is placed on my original sheet view allowing me to track revisions. I create a DWF of that portion of the sheet and paste it into an 8.5 x 11 detail sheet to create my sketch. I can then send the DWF by e-mail to all consultants and it remains a snapshot view of the detail that is not editable but can be used for markup by other consultants or the contractor.

[lcamara]

I could use something similar. I've been creating a web-based project archive with 1 DWF file per project. I'd like to be able to display a specific sheet or detail without having to create individual DWFs for each (and also be able to view the full project). In other words, I just want to be able to change the default view (from the web page) without having to create new DWFs.

[BCrouse]

Take a look at this Autodesk Web Site. Look for the camera and use it in the trail version.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=4086277

[lcamara]

Take a look at this Autodesk Web Site. Look for the camera and use it in the trail version.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=4086277
Do you mean download the trial and use a camera toolbar button? (I don't see a camera on the page)

We're buying a copy of Composer to play with. I'll be checking out the help file & features when I get a chance.

[BCrouse]

Do you mean download the trial and use a camera toolbar button? (I don't see a camera on the page)

We're buying a copy of Composer to play with. I'll be checking out the help file & features when I get a chance.
Yes, try that button. It is really cool.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

I've tried that and the camera utility is OK for certain things but the problem I have is the capture is at SCREEN resolution not the actual resolution of the DWF. Depending on the area to be captured the results can be less than acceptable.
This product shows some amazing potential but is still in it's infancy and needs some work before it can become the 'be all and end all' for drawing exchange and mark up.

[lcamara]

Does the capture create a separate file, or does it store the view in the DWF?

[scott.sheppard]

The camera creates an image that is stored in the original DWF file as a sheet. Since it is an image, it does not have the benefit that vectors do. When you zoom in, you get fuzzy pixels. I will pass on what you want to the product designers.

[lcamara]

To clarify how I'm using (want to use) this: I'm making one DWF per project containing all the sheets. I'm posting them on a web "library" and I'd like to be able to change the default page and/or zoom in on a particular detail (I would have the coordinates in a database) when a user does a search, etc. It would be a kind of typical detail library (to promote reuse).

Thanks

[scott.sheppard]

You want the ability to capture a subset of the original DWF as geometry. This is harder than it seems. Any polylines, polygons, text, images, etc. that are clipped by the edges of the area you select need to be reconstructed. When you create an irregular viewport in AutoCAD, AutoCAD does not even do this. AutoCAD leaves all of the geometry as it was and simply sets the clipping bounds to block out what is not desired. I guess something similar could be done for DWF, but you would be disappointed in the resulting file size.

[lcamara]

Yikes! My "clarification" actually confused things. That seems to happen a lot...

I'm not trying to make a smaller DWF. What I'm trying to do is avoid making multiple DWFs (one for each detail). I want to use the one "project DWF" that has all the sheets, and just show the user a particular page & area (I want to set the DWF's initial view using HTML code). That way, the user can search for a particular type of detail, and the results would show him/her the detail in the "project DWF". If they want to see the detail in context, they can zoom out & see the rest of the sheet, or look at the other sheets in the project (because it's all in one DWF).

I would expect that this shouldn't affect file size greatly (since at most I would just need to create some named views to be stored in the DWF). Ideally, I'd like to be able to specify the view by sheet & coordinates (without having to create named views first), but that's not too much of an inconvenience.

It doesn't need to be an irregular view. Most of our details are on rectangular grids. For the rare ones that are "L" or "Z" shaped (for large details and/or crowded sheets) seeing the other details is acceptable.

[scott.sheppard]

If you have multiple layouts in various DWG files and you only want a few of them, you could use the Sheet Set Manager of AutoCAD to select a node, other than the top node, and publish that subset to a DWF.

[lcamara]

If you have multiple layouts in various DWG files and you only want a few of them, you could use the Sheet Set Manager of AutoCAD to select a node, other than the top node, and publish that subset to a DWF.
It's not that I just want a subset of the sheets, it's that I want to have 2nd detail on sheet 3 (for example) be the default view when the page is loaded. From there, the user could zoom to see the entire sheet 3, or go to the other sheets in the set. I'd like to be able to set the initial view using HTML code, so I could use the same DWF on another page to show the 4th detail on sheet 2.

When I talk about showing a particular detail, I don't expect the DWF itself to be smart enough to do that - instead I would expect to use coordinates or a named view.