Hand Tools to CAD

[antsals]

Good Morning,
I'm after a little help. I want to create a shadow board for my hand tools but would like to get them into CAD first to get the best positions of the tools on the board. I also want to get the images set to cut them out in a colour etc.

The nuts of it all is how do I get my hand tools without measuring every radius and size into AutoCAD?

I thought maybe drawing round them then using a digitizer, or one of these digipens?

Any ideas would be great.

Ant

[aussiegazza]

Put them on a scanner if you can and then trace the scanned JPEG?

[antsals]

Some of them are too big for the scanner. How do I trace the scanned image?

Thanks
Ant

[aussiegazza]

Some of them are too big for the scanner. How do I trace the scanned image?

Thanks
Ant

Use the Cad program or maybe MS Draw? You could possibly take multiple scans and join them up to make a bigger image?

[kelef]

hi'ya antsals, photograph your tools and workstation with a scale in each picture and then vectorize the out-lines and space to scale, you can then move/place til you are satisfied, then print full scale - kelef

[BurrMan]

You could also see how many already exist as models:

3d content central

Sometimes going to a tool manufacturers website, you can get the models from them too...

[tlharris]

FWIW... we snap a few digi-pics, and then just insert them into CAD as an image, and start drawing over the top of it. We use Inventor, but we used to do this in AutoCAD as well.

You're drawing lines and arcs freehand, using the image as a guide. Depending on the resolution of the picture, and your patience, you might be off by a pixel or two, but this is normally acceptable tolerance

One thought is to trace as precisely as you can, and then offset the resultant p-line to get the clearance you want.