Topic: Graphic Presentation Software

[SomeCallMeDave]

I have a client that wants to create a presentation graphic similar to the attached image.

The base data will be from an AutoCAD file,  but can anyone recommend a graphics package that will do the trees and nice smooth color fields like the one shown that can use an AutoCAD file (dwg, dxf, etc) as a background.

My first thought was CorelDraw, but I haven't use it in years.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
David
 

[Maverick®]

Sketchup?  Greg B may know if that would suit you.

[dan19936]

You could do it in autocad just using RGB colors, except for the trees. Those you could paste an image & clip it for your boundary but the data might overwhelm your machine or make it unplottable. Otherwise I'd assume illustrator or corel draw.

Maybe m-color, an autocad add on, but I've heard mixed stories about it. http://www.m-color.com/m-color/gallery/MEA/drawing2.shtml Nixes the use of draworder, all sorting is by its own layer dialog. Does allow transparent fills.

Dan

[Greg B]

Sketchup?  Greg B may know if that would suit you.

I don't think he'd get the look he's after without out a bit of practice.

[quamper]

Export it to a WMF? Then edit in something like Photoshop/GIMP?

Keep the original on it's own layer inside whatever drawing program you use

[Kate M]

Check out Autodesk Impression. Still in "preview", but it looks pretty good.

[Josh Nieman]

Check out Autodesk Impression. Still in "preview", but it looks pretty good.

gah, I don't know why I didn't think about that... Impression is sweet!  The hardware requirements seem to be a little hefty, to me... with 2gb of RAM, I find that Impression has some problems with hanging when I'm doing some fills... it hogs up some memory too...  great software though.

[Cathy]

Can you put a Google earth or other aerial image underneath the autocad drawing?

[Greg B]

I did something like that with SketchUP...