Scan2CAD raster to vector conversion software

QUALITY SCANNING:

Creating high quality scans for raster to vector conversion

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Do not save your scan as a JPEG file

We recommend that you save your scans as TIFF files. If your scans are black and white, save them as TIFF Group 4 files. This will compress your scans without causing any loss in their quality.

Do not save your scans as JPEG.

JPEG uses "lossy compression", which means that it discards data it thinks you can do without. This causes it to decrease the quality of your scans by blurring the details and adding speckle artifacts. This means that JPEG files usually require extra raster cleaning steps before they can be vectorized. Some JPEG files can never be cleaned to the point where they can be successfully vectorized.

The smudging and grey "clouds" surrounding the lines in the images below are typical artifacts caused by saving scans as JPEG.

Unsuitable for raster to vector conversion - too blurry    Suitable for raster to vector conversion but still a bit blurry and speckled
Smudging and speckles caused by saving scans as JPEG.

Once you have damaged an image by saving it as JPEG, you cannot undo the damage by simply converting the JPEG image to TIFF. You will need to rescan the drawing.

Finally, if you are scanning and saving images as PDF files, use TIFF compression rather than JPEG inside the PDF when saving. For more information about scanning to PDF, click here.

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