Small Project Design

This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Custom Residential Architects Network and Small Project Practitioners .
-------------------------------------------

I have a small office with all Mac computers. Those of you who also have Mac's,
what equipment do you use to send drawings by email? I have found a HP Designjet T2300 scanner/plotter that is
compliant with Mac, but this is over 9 thousand $ and it is too big and too heavy.  I am now looking for separate pieces
of equipment, but I am finding that all the scanners seem to be PC formatted. This would require a PC computer to receive the image from the scanner.

Any thoughts/comments would be appreciated.
-------------------------------------------
Jeffrey Kline, AIA
Jeffrey Wyant Kline Architect
Oakmont PA
412-828-0288
-------------------------------------------

We use Macs and we simply say make pdf file when we go to the print command.   If you are talking about hand drawings then the cheapest way is to go to your print house and have them save a pdf to a print file as well as, or rather than printing your drawing.   

I used to print out all my drawings on an old HP plotter and take them to the printer because they looked better.   Now I don't bother and send pdf files directly to the print house.  The improvements in making pdf files now means they look just as good or better than before.   
 
-------------------------------------------
Peter Carlsen AIA
Carlsen & Frank Architects
Saint Paul MN
-------------------------------------------

I plot the drawings to a PDF driver creating 24x36 PDF files.  I send using any email server.  Mine is Thunderbird.  When printed on the other end with a 24x36 printer with no scaling, the drawings will come out to scale.  I zip multiple PDF drawings together using a zip utility and send this larger file by SendSpace.

-------------------------------------------
David Edrington AIA
David Edrington, Architect
Eugene OR
-------------------------------------------

Jeffrey,

An all-mac office, we "print" pdf's out of our CADD system, and email those. Letter size documents we can scan in-house with a ScanSnap or our HP multifunction inkjet printer. If we have large-format scans to be done (almost never) we have them scanned at the local print shop. Staples can also do the scanning. For shop drawing review we ask for electronic copes in PDF and use Adobe Acrobat (the full version, not the reader) to annotate as needed, save as PDF, and email back out.

We avoid paper wherever possible, and most folks we deal with do the same. Our clients and contractor contacts are mostly light commercial, not residential. I don't know if that makes a difference.

Why would you want to buy a big scanner? Are you using CADD to produce your documents?

-------------------------------------------
Michael Charek AIA
Principal
Michael Charek Architects
Portland ME
-------------------------------------------

I'm a small Mac office also, and like the others, use pdf's whenever we are sending files.  If you're trying to send a file of something hand drawn, or that you do not have in electronic form, I would suggest you try TurboScan by Piksoft (provided you have an iPhone or an iPad).  With TurboScan you simply take a photo of the drawing, crop, and correct for skew (all right in the app).  It's amazing how good the quality is, and at $2.99 you can't beat it.  There are probably some other apps out there that will do the same thing, but I have been using TurboScan for 2 or 3 years now, and have been very pleased with the results.

-------------------------------------------
Larry Mortimer AIA
Kahn/Mortimer/Associates Planning & Architecture
Oakland CA
-------------------------------------------

Larry's comment makes me note also, that a reasonably recent phone works pretty darn good taking pictures of drawings, particularly close ups of details.  I've used the technique as a way to make notes off of a set of drawings, such as a client's set, that I cannot remove to my office.

Regarding scanning of drawings, that would only be done if one did not produce the drawings, I think.  As someone else noted, printing directly to pdf is fast and the quality is high.  Can't say how it goes on windows, but this is a built in feature on all macs.

-------------------------------------------
Donald Wardlaw AIA
More Than Construction, Inc.
Oakland CA
-------------------------------------------







Original Message:
Sent: 01-15-2014 17:26
From: Larry Mortimer
Subject: Sending drawings electronically

I'm a small Mac office also, and like the others, use pdf's whenever we are sending files.  If you're trying to send a file of something hand drawn, or that you do not have in electronic form, I would suggest you try TurboScan by Piksoft (provided you have an iPhone or an iPad).  With TurboScan you simply take a photo of the drawing, crop, and correct for skew (all right in the app).  It's amazing how good the quality is, and at $2.99 you can't beat it.  There are probably some other apps out there that will do the same thing, but I have been using TurboScan for 2 or 3 years now, and have been very pleased with the results.

-------------------------------------------
Larry Mortimer AIA
Kahn/Mortimer/Associates Planning & Architecture
Oakland CA
-------------------------------------------

I am a small (i.e. one-man) Mac office, too.  I concur with Larry and Donald -- I use TurboScan on my iPhone a lot for scanning sketches and structural calcs.  It's great.  I also use it to create images of full sized sets of plans and, as long as the sheets are flat, it works well.  (These aren't museum quality scans, but nice for communicating.)  In my day to day practice, I rarely need to scan a full sized sheet, just some portion of a sheet or a detail, and TurboScan does the trick.  

Another possible work around for you, since you mentioned scanners being PC based, is to use Parallels to run Windows on one of your Macs.  Once the scanned file is in the Windows system, you can then drag it to your Mac desktop.  I use Parallels to run some Windows based structural software, and it works okay.  It seems slow to me, but I am not familiar with Windows so I am not sure what the problem is (i.e. Parallels or Windows XP).

-------------------------------------------
Patrick Marr AIA
Patrick Marr, PE, AIA
Santa Barbara CA
-------------------------------------------







Original Message:
Sent: 01-16-2014 17:23
From: Donald Wardlaw
Subject: Sending drawings electronically

Larry's comment makes me note also, that a reasonably recent phone works pretty darn good taking pictures of drawings, particularly close ups of details.  I've used the technique as a way to make notes off of a set of drawings, such as a client's set, that I cannot remove to my office.

Regarding scanning of drawings, that would only be done if one did not produce the drawings, I think.  As someone else noted, printing directly to pdf is fast and the quality is high.  Can't say how it goes on windows, but this is a built in feature on all macs.

-------------------------------------------
Donald Wardlaw AIA
More Than Construction, Inc.
Oakland CA
-------------------------------------------