Bitmap Calibration and Automatic Raster-to-vector conversion

When drawing you may need overlays. You can create an overlay by using a general plan, a hand made plan, a contour map, etc. Overlays are either supplied in a digitalized form or available after scanning. Overlays can be imported into the drawing to create a background.

Overlay

The overlay created this way contains background points (pixels). The number of pixels defines the display resolution of the overlay and so its quality, however it represents no other specific value. Accordingly, the overlay cannot be considered particularly useful with respect to the actual drawing. The image imported into the background unquestionably increases the aesthetic value of the drawing but is only relevant if its scale aligns with the corresponding scale of the drawing area. Thus the scale of the overlay has to be changeable.

Calibration

Calibration is a special method that coordinates the imported overlay with the vector drawing thus ensuring the possibility of specifying real distances, areas or angles in the overlay. When the scale set for calibration matches the true scale, you can work in true scale in the overlay as well.

Vectorization

The calibrated image still contains pixels, meaning that during drawing the program does not recognize the content of the image, e.g. the lines of the hand made plan. That is why vectorization is needed. The vectorization means that the program recognizes the contours in the scanned image and generates lines on top of them. The result is a lined drawing, which You can edit. This method significantly decreases the time of planning by eliminating the time-consuming tracing of scanned general plans or models.

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