How to work with vector PDFs in Inkscape (for professional architectural drawings)?

knotsruenknotsruen
edited May 6 in General

I've just tried importing fairly regular architectural plans as PDFs into inkscape to mark them up only to see it freeze and be generally slow performing half of the actions. The same operations (importing, navigating the pages, snapping, even simple undoing/redoing) in AutoCAD proved to work reliably and almost instantly.

That's caused by inkscape trying to translate all vector objects into its native svg objects while AutoCAD just "references" it. However, I don't see an equivalent option for inkscape to "reference" a vector PDF. I can't just rasterize it as architectural drawings need to be precise :).

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Comments

  • theoryshawtheoryshaw

    @axelp might have some idea.

  • knotsruenknotsruen
    edited May 6

    looks like referencing svg/pdf files directly isn't possible in inkscape yet sadly (also looks like someone was testing linking in inkscape already in 2018).

    I will give scribus a try. Otherwise it'll be back to my autodesk sugar daddy...

  • axelpaxelp

    Yes, not possible currently. It is a large load on the CPU and bogs down hard. My work around is to pull in only the specific sheets that I need.
    You can also experiment with the internal importer (open PDF with the open dialog) or using the Cairo importer (file --> Import) . I personally get better results with the internal option, it creates canvas and places elements accurately on them. The Cairo importer can do some odd things. at times with where the imported elements appear.

    • Coming soon to Inkscape is GPU based rendering.. I'm not totally up to speed on releases, but I know they are switching to GTK+ 4 soon. It was initially planned for v1.4 but was pushed back.
  • knotsruenknotsruen

    Good to hear about support for GPU rendering coming in, however I think that a lot of performance issues could be already avoided with a smarter system for linking files.
    You are right that internal importer is more accurate, but it is too slow for larger PDFs, especially when you only need to reference and inspect them without editing.

  • knotsruenknotsruen
    edited May 6

    ended up converting PDFs to images and using inkscape anyway and whenever a group changes just copying it again an again to every one (out of around hundred) drawings
    living in hope that one day I'll find a way to swap them in one go from command line (marking up images in autocad turned out to be too painful)

  • axelpaxelp
    edited May 6

    Nice, yes.. working with rasters and annotating over top with vectors in Inkscape is the way to go if you can get away with the pixelization when you crop or zoom plans . You certainly can have a lot of bitmaps open at a time.

    Also, for simple PDF viewing... as I can't stand having any Adobe anything installed on my machine, I use SumatraPDF .(https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/) . It is lightweight and has a minimal interface. I have crashed it speed scrolling large PDFs, but I always prefer a libre licensed software solution and work with its quirks .

    Nigel
  • knotsruenknotsruen
    edited May 6

    You certainly can have a lot of bitmaps open at a time

    I was initially concerned about it, because each inkscape instance took up over 600MB of memory, but windows virtual memory did wonders reducing it to a tenth of that, so yes, you can really have hundred pages opened (as long as you won't try processing them at the same time ;) ).

    Lack of proper linking is very disappointing, but it surely can be scripted. It's just an svg after all...

    Also, for simple PDF viewing... as I can't stand having any Adobe anything installed on my machine, I use SumatraPDF

    I just use web browser to open them, same for .svg files. It's definitiely much better than Acrobat. Editing PDFs on the other hand...

    I have crashed it speed scrolling large PDFs

    I must admit though that for speed scrolling large PDFs I'd still resort to Acrobat, it seems to have the best settings out of the box for large, technical drawings.

    libre licensed software solution and work with its quirks

    In case of inkscape I'm at a point where you are a racoon digging for scraps piecing a dinner together, because inkscape really doesn't seem to want to edit this amount of drawings. It does kind of work with raster images and a small amount of vector objects, but with a constant anxiety of the kind "which CAD feature will be missing next". For example, the --add-id-tag which let's you separate inkscape instances and not crash the whole set at any moment, which is something you'd take for granted in most programs was very difficult to dig out of inkscape documentation.

  • axelpaxelp

    If you are interested in continuing your investigations, you should check out the inkscape forums and their rocketchat instance, I have found it a great community to ask questions and it is easy to chat with the developers.

    https://inkscape.org/community/

    knotsruenNigel
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