By Dennis Collin
Do you need to create a high-resolution image from your AutoCAD drawing? This is a very straightforward task and is achieved with just plotting your model/layout, although a little configuration is necessary first. To do this open the plot dialog box. Note a plotter driver named PublishToWebPNG.pc3. Rather than output to a device, a PNG image will be created with fair image quality but not too large an image size, which will be ideal for Power Point presentations and web content.
PNG is a popular image format for presentation packages, but there are other alternatives such as JPG, BMP, TIFF or TGA formats.
This can be achieved by adding more plotters for those file types. Within the Windows control panel there will be an Autodesk Plotter Manager icon.
Upon opening this we can see all the AutoCAD plotters. To add new plotter, double click Add-A-Plotter Wizard.
This will bring up a setup wizard page. Click next at the first Introduction page after noting the information.
On the next page, select My Computer (this will add a device controlled by your computer). Then click next. On the next page, you can see a list of manufacturers and plotter models. To add a TIFF plotter, select Raster File Formats from the manufacturers list. In this example we will select TIFF Version 6 (Uncompressed) as the new plotter model.
Once the different steps have been completed within the wizard, the process is complete and a new driver (PC3) file is created. In AutoCAD, within the plot dialog box, the new plotter should be listed.
This plotter can now be used to create an image. For custom resolutions, access the properties menu and choose custom paper sizes. These sizes will be defined in pixels rather than millimetres and once set, these custom-made sizes will be added to the media size list and can be accessed from the plot dialog.
When outputting images, choose a format that’s appropriate for the purpose. Balance the image quality against the file size. A large image may mean waiting a long time during an important presentation or a slow web site loading time!