Vectorization of Scanned Paper-Based Engineering Drawings – Contemporary Software Abilities

The contribution deals with the possibilities of the use of existing commercially available vectorization programs for recognition drawing entities in raster graphics format obtained by scanning of the engineering drawing. Drawing entities as a line (solid, dashed, dot-dashed etc.), dimension, hatch, various symbols, text, etc., have specific semantic for the designer defined by standards. Expert knows to interpret this graphic language and he knows to create a mental model of the real object. To be able interpret digital content of the engineering drawing obtained by scanning by the form of 3D computer model often requires to perform many intelligent operations. In the first step it is necessary to obtain such vector representation of the scanned drawing to be able to identify the original drawing entities. Suitability of using the contemporary commercial vectorizing programs for engineering drawings was verified on the test sample of the drawing entities and the results are published in the paper.