Official Luthiers Forum!

We have the capabilities of offering my OLF plans in an electronic format along with a viewer to view them and print them. However I doubt many have a printer large enough to print them at full scale. But this would give you a permanent copy that could be viewed and printed in smaller scales or take the electronic file to someone with large format printing capabilities and have it plotted on paper at full scale. The advantages to you is having a permanent file that can be viewed, reproduced but not altered. The advantage to the forum is this can be emailed vs. snail mail. If enough are interested we will offer this as an option.MichaelP38456.5350694444

This will make wating for shipping from me to Lance and lance to the end user a thing of the past on the electronic filesMichaelP38456.5933217593

Please voteWE NEED OLF PLAN USERS TO PLEASE VOTEMichaelP38456.5951157407

Michael,

Living overseas as I do, the electronic copy option would be excellent, as it would save on shipping costs, etc.

Acutally, a PayPal type system and the ability to download the files would be a great option.

Why not offer both? In fact, if someone buys a paper copy (at a higher cost), include the electronic copy as well.

_________________
JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

E-mail

That is a thought,

It is not there just yet but those of you that knows Autodesk’s influence on the drafting industries standers will understand my next statement. This will be the standard format drawings will be provided by Engineering and Drafting firms to there end users in the very near future. This allows the end user to print as many copies as they need while protecting the work of the engineer or drafter from copy right infringements or reverse engineering. pluse it is e-mailable. Big big plus.MichaelP38456.6748958333

yep it can be sent e-mail

Michael,
Electronic would work for me.
I may be the minority tho. I use Photoshop and Illustrator to work with guitar designs and have learned how to print full scale with a regular printer by choosing parts of the whole image and taping them together to get a full scale plan.
Maybe there is some software that does this for you?
There must be a way.

Wade

_________________
Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com

Wade you can do the same thing with this viewer as well. But again I need to stress that this view is the only software that will open these files. But the viewer software is free.

[QUOTE=JJ Donohue] Why not offer both? In fact, if someone buys a paper copy (at a higher cost), include the electronic copy as well.[/QUOTE]

I like this idea too but feel that just an electronic option could work as well.

Yea but when I drew the plans the reason they were 3 sheets of 36x24 was so that they could be used for tracings and such to make forms and molds. That has been one of my complaints on some plans I have bought. That is having details a less than full scale. The DWF files are full scale but it is a hassle to print a bunch of 8.5x11's to get a full scale 36x24. However in the very near future i am sure most of the major printing companies will be able to print these. Autodesk is really pushing this format for drawing transmittals.MichaelP38456.6908217593

I think you should offer both, but may the digital copy cheaper. The reason is because I will then need to take the file to my local Kinko's and pay $3 or $4 to make a copy of it. It will also be cheaper for you since you save on shipping and paper costs. Thanks for doing this!
Tracy

Tracy I am not sure at this point that Kinkos or other printers have the DWF viewer loaded and ready to use to print from a file yet. But what Autodesk is telling me is that that day is coming very soon. This is great thing for my proffesion. Before I either had to run as many sets as the client requested then mail them too them or send them a DWG file that left my work unprotected from re-wright. Now If the client has the printing capabilities I send this to the via e-mail with out worring that the client may change the drawing or reverse engineer the design by using my work to do it with. They can print there little hearts out.

[QUOTE=Wade S.] Michael,
Electronic would work for me.
I may be the minority tho. I use Photoshop and Illustrator to work with guitar designs and have learned how to print full scale with a regular printer by choosing parts of the whole image and taping them together to get a full scale plan.
Maybe there is some software that does this for you?
There must be a way.

Wade[/QUOTE]

After seeing Wade's post, where he is working with Illustrator....

It is possible to import Autocad .dwg and .dxf into Illustrator and export/save them as .pdf files. I believe every print shop on earth can handle the PDF format, so maybe this would be a good option as far as file format for the plans to be delivered in.

IF you need someone to carry out the file conversions from Autocad to PDF, I would be willing to do it.

Just a thought! :) russ38456.7271180556

Couldn't you PDF them? Wouldn't that work? I bet Kinkos has that loaded on their machines.

Or am I oversimplifying?

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

PDF file can be convertied to editable graphic formats.
DWF files can't. This protects my work from someone else taking credit or someone else selling it and robbing the forum of it's exclusive rights to sell the plans.

Ahh.. I see...

Too bad.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Plus you lose the line quaility with PDF. The DWF file print to exact line weight and color format that I set Autocad to.

[QUOTE=MichaelP] Plus you lose the line quaility with PDF. The DWF file print to exact line weight and color format that I set Autocad to.[/QUOTE]

Michael,

As I said earlier, the convenience of electronic copies would be great for me (especially since I am overseas, and the shipping costs are quite high for paper versions), but if the files can only be distributed in the DWF format, I think it would make electronic distribution (at least for me) non cost-effective.

Paying for plotter time (at least in Europe) would far exceed the cost of just buying pre-printed plans.

So Michael, does this mean that I would not be able to print a DWF file at Kinkos?
Tracy

Call me old fashioned but I like the hard copy. i think maybe you could offer both of course with teh electronic copy being cheaper. i have no problem paying more to get the hard copy. just saves me some running around time

I prefer electronic myself, gives me the option of changing things and cropping things.. I have all my plans scanned and on CD anyways, it would just save me having to go down and get them scanned

_________________
CVT Inc.
A tour of our shop (Somewhat outdated)
My Personal eBay profile. BCWoodBug

Tracy at this point and time I don't know. Ours here in Odessa has The DWF Viewer software. But in our area there is a lot of transmitted Autocad drawings between firms in our industry. The DWF viewer is required to open the file and or print it. like I said the viewer is freeware. So I suspect that most will have it very soon. Lance is not going to quit providing hard copies any time soon. The main reason for this poll was to see if there was an intrest in electronic files vs hard copies

You would not be able to change these Jason. They can not be copied to another file, screen shot, or converted to another format in any way. That was the point Autocad had when developing this format. They will only open with This viewer software and are fully wright protected.