Gif/jpg to autocad?

I'm fairly new to autocad, although I've programmed CNC vertical mills
with Smartcam for years, and I've gotta say, I'm picking up autocad
like a duck to water.

The only thing thats really stumped me so far is converting files
over....if its even possible at all. I've got a black and white
line-art .gif file, and I would like to convert it to a DXF or DWG
file so that I can dimention it all out, program it and cut the shape
into a chunk of aluminum as a decorative thing.

I've tried a couple online converters for gif to autocad, but haven't
had any sucsess yet. Is there an easy way to do this?

Thanks in advance for your help
Shawn

 

There's no direct way to go from raster to vector in acad.
You'll have to recreate the artwork with vectors, or find some
nifty add-on that might do it.

 

In alt.cad.autocad , ST wrote :

Hi
The slickest way I've used to get a graphic to vector is by having a
sign shop do it,

Their conversion program beats even what I've seen wintopo do !

Sorry couldn't tell you the name of the sign software though :-(

Ron

 

Perhaps they were using the WinTopo Professional version rather than the
Freeware version?

 

See http://autotrace.sourceforge.net/
or
ttp://potrace.sourceforge.net/potrace.html
it could help you.

and
http://www.irfanview.com/
to convert the gif into bmp

 

try SCAN2CAD. It's not bad.

Softcover International Ltd
364 Milton Road
Cambridge CB4 1LW
England
Tel: +44 (0)1223 42 43 42
Fax: +44 (0)1223 42 44 00
Email:
Web: www.rastertovector.com

If you have lots of $$ you can try Autodesk's Raster Design 2005. I had a chance to work with it recently and it works quite well.

Garth.