1. ADD A PLOTTER
a. Open up the “Plotter Manager” located on the “File” menu.
b. Click on the “Add A Plotter Wizard” icon.
c. When you get to “Plotter Model” find the “Raster File Formats” plotter under the manufactures list.
d. Select “MS-Windows BMP (Uncompressed DIB)” under models .
e. Complete the setup to get the “Raster File Formats” plotter to appear as an option when plotting in CAD.
2. PAGE SETUP
a. It is recommended that you use Paper Space.
b. When setting up a page, be sure to select “Raster File Formats” as the plot device in the Plotter Configuration box.
c. When selecting layout size, you must now keep in mind that the AutoCAD units used in Paper Space will now be “Pixels” instead of “Inches.” The pixel size of your layout will be the pixel size of the finished bitmap image.
d. Set up your Viewport like you normally would on CAD.
3. PLOTTING
a. Simply plot to file, which is usually the only way you can plot using the “Raster File Formats” option.
b. The plotted file will automatically be a bitmap image and can be opened in Paint.
The next two steps invovles a high detail scaling process where a printed paint file will be close to scale as well
4. HIGH DETAIL SCALEING
a. Microsoft Paint typically uses 96 pixies per printed inch.
b. Because Paint sets all of it’s page margins to .75 by default, creating a paper size of 672x912 will create a paint image that will fit on a standard 8.5x11 sheet of paper when printed.
5. TAKING A RASTER, THEN SENDING IT BACK TO PAINT WITH THE SAME SCALE
a. Supposed you used a paint image where every 2 pixels equaled a foot. When inserting the raster image, scale it accordingly to the bottom attributes of the image. Creating a box in Model Space with the same ratio as the view port to use as a zoom guide when zooming the view port on paper space. This box size will determine how big the paint image is going to be, thus, you are able to get back those 2 pixels equaling a foot on paint.
KGH