I like using the SolidWorks eDrawings and often prefer it because too many times the engineers are either too busy to give me the drawings or the views I need. It has been far easier to ask for .easm files that have been saved for eDrawings. Then I open the file, rotate it to show what I need and hide those elements that I do not need. Then I print the result to a PDF, which I can import into Illustrator if needed.
Tim Lewis Lewis Technical Communications, Inc. ltc.writer at comcast.net > -----Original Message----- Jo: According to my mechanical designer (Alex has been great - teaching me about what I can do via AI with his SolidWorks stuff) there is pretty much *zero* work involved for the engineers to Save As an AI file (or a DWG file if your SoildWorks is older than the 2009 version) when they Save As to an EASM file. Is there a company protocol that forbids saving as an AI or DWG? If not, I highly suggest you try to get the engineer to spend an extra few seconds getting you what the user/customer needs - maybe bribe him with some doughnuts or muffins ;-)). In the past, I've had to use non-vector SolidWorks images and *no one* has been happy with the results. Alison From: [email protected] [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Jo Watkiss Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 2:28 AM To: framers at lists.frameusers.com Subject: RE: off topic: e-drawings, eps files, frame and pdf Thanks everybody for lots of advice and suggestions. We don't have access to Solidworks itself, only the 3D e-drawing (.easm) that is supplied by the project engineer. We use the Solidworks eDrawings Viewer to manipulate the model to get the illustration that we need. Unfortunately, if we want to export a vector, its 'all or nothing' - which is probably why the resulting image renders so slowly on screen. I agree that in a perfect world the engineer would create all the illustrations we need as 2D PDFs directly from Solidworks; or we would have another Solidworks licence so that we could do it ourselves. In our imperfect world, we have to make do with the eDrawing. I've concluded its best to use a bitmap wherever possible, and a vector only when absolutely necessary. Cheers, Jo
