AABSyS successfully completes a large number of raster to vector conversion projects for its clients worldwide.
Bhubaneswar, 16 April 2009
AABSyS has successfully completed a large number of raster to vector conversion projects for its clients worldwide. Companies around the globe are outsourcing their Raster to Vector Conversions for a number of reasons. These include:
Competitive edge through access to hard-to-find technical skills and faster time-to-market
Improved efficiency and performance, and lower operating costs and overheads
Increased focus on core competency, as specialists at outsourced locations take care of the nitty-gritty of the raster to vector conversion projects
Better managed e-business infrastructure
Increased reliability and security
AABSyS is an India-based CAD Outsourcing company that specializes in manual drafting and raster to vector conversion. There are many reasons why manual drafting is better than automated drafting. Automated raster to vector programs are limited by the ability of the software to make decisions that require human intelligence. For example, automatic raster to vector conversion does not offer editable text, layering, associative dimensioning, or adherence to any office standards.
Though manual and automated drafting have their shortcomings, the former is often preferred because there are areas where the technology is limited and where professional input is required.
Some of these are:
Arcs and circles: Automated programs convert arcs and circles to short, unrelated line segments, and will behave as such when manipulated. Arcs and circles often call for special treatment because the original hand-drawn circles are actually elliptical .
Attributes: Automated conversion processes cannot assign attributes or database information. This greatly reduces the value of the drawings for future CAD and GIS work .
Colours and gray scales: CAD and GIS conversion need high-contrast originals. Colour maps cause problems that must be interpreted by professionals.
Contour lines: Though most conversion processes handle straight lines easily, there may be problems reproducing a series of contour lines. Contour lines must be preset and adjusted during the conversion process, slowing the efficiency of the overall effort .
Conversion of extraneous information: In addition to the problems associated with correctly converting real data into CAD and GIS files, every smudge, crease, speckle or stain also has the potential of finding its way into the converted drawings .
Dimensions: Dimensions are converted to an unrelated assortment of lines with no association to each other or to the items they describe .
Gaps: Imperfections, light or thin areas in lines on the original drawings are frequently interpreted as white space. The result is often a continuous line that is broken into unrelated segments because of the conversion process. Each drawing has to be reviewed to make sure all contiguous lines are true .
Hatch patterns: In some cases, hatch patterns are treated like enormous numbers of unrelated line segments. They will be difficult to manipulate and can greatly reduce the efficiency of the file’s performance in terms of storage and output.
Layering: Depending on the drawing, the number of layers comprising finished CAD and GIS files can be numerous. Typically, automated conversions put all of the information on a single layer, or some will put each line weight on a different layer, but only if there is a clear difference in line thickness .
Line types: Any non-continuous line type such as a dash or segment is converted into a separate and unrelated line entity .
Missing information: Automated conversion programs tend to omit information that they don’t understand. Often this results in arbitrary elimination of real data in the converted drawing .
Noise: Vector entities created from map text are often treated as noise and often deleted from finished GIS conversions.
Style: Automated conversion processes often are incapable maintaining style within each file and within a group of files. Dimensions, symbols, borders, title blocks, text heights, fonts and text often need to be reworked for consistency and aesthetics.
Symbols: Symbols are often limited to libraries installed in the conversion process and are processed in a “best match” mode. In a worst-case scenario, the symbols can be converted to numerous unrelated line segments .
Text: Text is often converted as many small line segments and therefore virtually impossible to edit. Some applications offer Optical Character Recognition (OCR) functionality but are limited. In a case where the OCR functionality is 98% accurate, one out of 50 characters can be assumed to be wrong and one needs to do a careful review of such cases.
