Measuring Tools For PDF Plans - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)
Measuring Tools For PDF Plans
Hi All
Our Council are looking at going fully electronic with our plan handling. At the moment we can measure, annotate and manipulate plans using a program called PDF Exchange Viewer (and there are measuring tools in the version of Adobe Viewer which we also use, although less). It is very good at most things, however there is no tool within that program, as far as our IT Department are aware, which can measure angles accurately. A part of assessing new housing layouts, and even basic householder applications, uses angles so this means we are still somewhat reliant on paper plans for angle measurements.
I was wondering how other Councils (or other planners really!) measure angles on PDF electronic plans, and what other programs are out there which have been used successfully? A quick Google shows many different programs, but I've no idea which are good and which are not fit for the purpose.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks
Darren.
Nigel Hancock, modified 8 Years ago.
RE: Measuring Tools For PDF Plans
New Member Posts: 14 Join Date: 19/10/11 Recent PostsHi Darren,
We have also been using PDF Exchange Viewer for some time as it really is a good piece of free software. We have been fully electronic for a few years now and if we need to measure an angle, we copy and paste the part of the drawing that we want to look at into MS Word and then draw a line. You can then use the options to set the angle of the line to whatever you want to check building positioning or vetical alignments. Its a bit of a faff but for the odd time we need to do it, it works and doesnt need any additional software installed.
Hope this helps
Nigel
Mary-Ann Jones, modified 8 Years ago.
RE: Measuring Tools For PDF Plans
New Member Posts: 3 Join Date: 21/01/12 Recent PostsHi Darren,
At the risk of over simplifying things, as a quick reference for angles I literally hold a protractor up to the screen! An angle is an angle whether it is on paper or on a screen.
We also use Onstream Trapeze, Adobe (full version) for measurements or ask agents to annotate plans if there is a point of query.
Mary-Ann
Thank you both for your responses. Some of us do the protractor on the screen trick already, and it does seem to work. I suppose I was looking for a more high-tech solution! But, as you say it does work.
I've seen something called BlueBeam... it seems quite expensive but does seem to have an agle measurement tool, has anyone got experience of that (or any cheaper software)? I think it is around £200 for each copy of the software, which seems expensive compared to a 20p protractor, and perhaps hard to justify.
Thanks
Darren.