cad drawing design and architects architecture and architecture terms
Quality Drawing Services
freelance architectural drawings - domestic measured surveys and plans - graphic design & illustration - freehand artistic
File formats:
A selection of the file formats I can produce from CAD drawings are listed below with explanations.
.DWG - This is the standard AutoCAD drawing file format. (AutoCAD is one of the major professional CAD drawing programs.) If you have AutoCAD or another CAD program that reads the format you will be able to both view and edit the file.
.DXF - stands for Drawing eXchange Format. This is a very standard format that is used by many different CAD and graphics programs, allowing users to exchange drawings even if they don't have the same program. The industry standard for CAD drawings, for use in AutoCAD and other CAD software.
PDF - Portable Document Format. Universally recognized, for easy viewing and printing on any computer via Adobe Acrobat Reader. Vector information is preserved so drawings can be inspected in fine detail. Drawings can be viewed, saved, printed etc, but not edited.
Other vector based formats can be created if required including .EPS and .SVG
The above formats are most suited to CAD drawings. The following image file formats are less suitable for viewing CAD drawings but can be produced for other graphic works:
JPG - universally recognised image format for viewing etc but not editing. Not ideal for CAD drawings as vector information is lost so when zooming in the image becomes pixellated. It is the most common format for storing and transmitting photographic images on the World Wide Web since it can have very small file sizes due to being a 'lossy compressed' format. (Higher levels of compression lead to a loss of image quality.) The name "JPEG" stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the name of the committee that created the standard. The JPEG compression algorithm is at its best on photographs and paintings of realistic scenes with smooth variations of tone and color. For web usage, where the bandwidth used by an image is important, JPEG is a good photographic image format. On the other hand, JPEG is not as well suited for line drawings and other textual or iconic graphics, where the sharp contrasts between adjacent pixels cause noticeable artifacts. Such images are better saved in TIFF format (for local usage) or in GIF or PNG format (for web usage).
A selection of the file formats I can produce from CAD drawings are listed below with explanations.
.DWG - This is the standard AutoCAD drawing file format. (AutoCAD is one of the major professional CAD drawing programs.) If you have AutoCAD or another CAD program that reads the format you will be able to both view and edit the file.
.DXF - stands for Drawing eXchange Format. This is a very standard format that is used by many different CAD and graphics programs, allowing users to exchange drawings even if they don't have the same program. The industry standard for CAD drawings, for use in AutoCAD and other CAD software.
PDF - Portable Document Format. Universally recognized, for easy viewing and printing on any computer via Adobe Acrobat Reader. Vector information is preserved so drawings can be inspected in fine detail. Drawings can be viewed, saved, printed etc, but not edited.
Other vector based formats can be created if required including .EPS and .SVG
The above formats are most suited to CAD drawings. The following image file formats are less suitable for viewing CAD drawings but can be produced for other graphic works:
JPG - universally recognised image format for viewing etc but not editing. Not ideal for CAD drawings as vector information is lost so when zooming in the image becomes pixellated. It is the most common format for storing and transmitting photographic images on the World Wide Web since it can have very small file sizes due to being a 'lossy compressed' format. (Higher levels of compression lead to a loss of image quality.) The name "JPEG" stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the name of the committee that created the standard. The JPEG compression algorithm is at its best on photographs and paintings of realistic scenes with smooth variations of tone and color. For web usage, where the bandwidth used by an image is important, JPEG is a good photographic image format. On the other hand, JPEG is not as well suited for line drawings and other textual or iconic graphics, where the sharp contrasts between adjacent pixels cause noticeable artifacts. Such images are better saved in TIFF format (for local usage) or in GIF or PNG format (for web usage).
I use a range of software including CAD, vector drawing, photo-editing and 3D modelling software. All software is legally owned and licensed.
CAD Drawing:
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CAD stands for Computer Aided Design. It is the use of computer technology to aid in the design and especially the drafting (technical drawing and engineering drawing) of a part or product, including entire buildings. Drafting can be done in two dimensions ("2D") and three dimensions ("3D"). I use a CAD drawing program to create accurate drawings. These could be from a measured survey of an existing building; a blueprint for a new building or product; or a conversion of an existing paper-based drawing. A CAD drawing represents precise, accurate distances and angles and can be printed to paper at an exact scale, for example 1:100 or 1:200 for a typical building plan. Whereas 2D CAD drawings can take some training to understand correctly, a 3-dimensional CAD drawing can be used to accurately represent a proposed building or object in a way that is easy for anyone to understand.
.PNG - The Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format is a popular alternative to GIF images since it uses better compression techniques and does not have a limit of 256 colors, but PNGs do not support animations. PNG is a bitmapped image format that employs lossless data compression. PNG was created to improve upon and replace the GIF format, as an image-file format not requiring a patent license. PNG supports palette-based (palettes of 24-bit RGB colors), greyscale or RGB images. PNG was designed for transferring images on the Internet, not professional graphics, and so does not support other color spaces (such asCMYK).
PDF - Adobe's portable document format can preserve both vector and raster imagery so is a useful format for distributing any drawing.
Other file formats can also be produced on request.
The difference between 'Vector' and 'Raster' file formats.
Vector graphics is the use of geometrical basics such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based upon mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics.
Vector graphics formats are complementary to raster graphics, which is the representation of images as an array of pixels, as it is typically used for the representation of photographic images. There are instances when working with vector tools and formats is best practice (with CAD drawings for example), and instances when working with raster tools and formats is best practice.
As this illustration shows, raster (or bitmap) images are based on pixels and thus scale with loss of clarity, while vector-based images can be scaled indefinitely without degrading.
PDF - Adobe's portable document format can preserve both vector and raster imagery so is a useful format for distributing any drawing.
Other file formats can also be produced on request.
The difference between 'Vector' and 'Raster' file formats.
Vector graphics is the use of geometrical basics such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based upon mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics.
Vector graphics formats are complementary to raster graphics, which is the representation of images as an array of pixels, as it is typically used for the representation of photographic images. There are instances when working with vector tools and formats is best practice (with CAD drawings for example), and instances when working with raster tools and formats is best practice.
As this illustration shows, raster (or bitmap) images are based on pixels and thus scale with loss of clarity, while vector-based images can be scaled indefinitely without degrading.
.TIF - Tagged Image File Format (abbreviated TIFF) is a file format for storing images, including photographs and line art. The TIFF is a flexible, adaptable file format for handling images and data within a single file, by including the header tags (size, definition, image-data arrangement, applied image compression) defining the image's geometry. For example, a TIFF can be a container file holding compressed JPEG and RLE (run-length encoding) images. A TIFF also can include a vector-based Clipping path (outlines, croppings, image frames). The ability to store image data in a lossless format makes the TIFF file a useful image archive, because, unlike standard JPEG files, the TIFF using lossless compression (or none) may be edited and re-saved without losing image compression; other TIFF options are layers and pages.
.GIF - The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a bitmap image format in widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability.
The format supports up to 8 bits per pixel, allowing a single image to reference a palette of up to 256 distinct colors chosen from the 24-bit RGB color space. It also supports animations and allows a separate palette of 256 colors for each frame. The color limitation makes the GIF format unsuitable for reproducing color photographs and other images with continuous color, but it is well-suited for more simple images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of color.
GIF images are compressed using the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) lossless data compression technique to reduce the file size without degrading the visual quality.
• GIFs are suitable for sharp-edged line art (such as logos) with a limited number of colors. This takes advantage of the format's lossless compression, which favors flat areas of uniform color with well defined edges (in contrast to JPEG, which favors smooth gradients and softer images).
• GIFs can also be used to store low-color sprite data for games.
• GIFs can be used for small animations and low-resolution film clips.
• In view of the general limitation on the GIF image palette to 256 colors, it is not usually used as a format for digital photography. Digital photographers use image file formats capable of reproducing a greater range of colors, such as TIFF, RAW or the lossy JPEG, which is more suitable for compressing photographs.
.GIF - The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a bitmap image format in widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability.
The format supports up to 8 bits per pixel, allowing a single image to reference a palette of up to 256 distinct colors chosen from the 24-bit RGB color space. It also supports animations and allows a separate palette of 256 colors for each frame. The color limitation makes the GIF format unsuitable for reproducing color photographs and other images with continuous color, but it is well-suited for more simple images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of color.
GIF images are compressed using the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) lossless data compression technique to reduce the file size without degrading the visual quality.
• GIFs are suitable for sharp-edged line art (such as logos) with a limited number of colors. This takes advantage of the format's lossless compression, which favors flat areas of uniform color with well defined edges (in contrast to JPEG, which favors smooth gradients and softer images).
• GIFs can also be used to store low-color sprite data for games.
• GIFs can be used for small animations and low-resolution film clips.
• In view of the general limitation on the GIF image palette to 256 colors, it is not usually used as a format for digital photography. Digital photographers use image file formats capable of reproducing a greater range of colors, such as TIFF, RAW or the lossy JPEG, which is more suitable for compressing photographs.
Graphic Design:
A range of graphic art can be produced for either printing or use on the web or other electronic media. This can incorporate vector based designs that can be scaled to any size without loss of quality (like CAD drawings); and/or raster images including digital photographs and pixel-based art work.
Illustration:
Hand drawn works may be scanned for duplication and printing or to be incorporated into a broader design on the computer.