GTCO Calcomp Digitizer v. AutoCAD 2000

[DBCFG]

My company just recently purchased a GTCO Calcomp Digitizer. We can get the digitizer to digitize into AutoCAD 2000 but the scale is 25% smaller that the actual pattern. Does anyone know of a way to get the digitized information to flow into AutoCAD at full scale?

[lpseifert]

Have you calibrated the tablet? TABLET > CAL

[DBCFG]

YEs, we even had their tech support on the line who basically said that the digitizer was working and the problem is inside of AutoCAD

[ReMark]

There is no problem inside of AutoCAD. You have erroneously calibrated the digitizer. You have what I refer to as OIE...Operator Induced Error. Try again.

 

What size tablet do you have?

 

What size drawing are you working with?

 

What coordinates do you enter when prompted by AutoCAD after picking the lower left and upper right hand "pick" points?

[DBCFG]

ReMArk is there anyway I can contact you directly?

 

We have a GTCO Super L VI

44" x 60" Tablet

Drawing sizes will vary from 10" x 10" up to twice the size of the digitizer

Not sure about the coordinates as it is in another facility where another engineer has been working with it.

[ReMark]

What are you digitizing into AutoCAD? Is it a drawing of a house, a contour map, a double-acting air cylinder, other?

 

Let's say I have a 2D drawing of a side view of an ordinary stapler. And lets say the stapler is 7" long by 2.5" high and it is depicted full size. I would take this drawing and make a copy of it. On the copy of the drawing I would hand draw a box around the stapler that is 9" by 4" as I want a little extra room to play with. I hope you did not throw away your mechanical pencil and triangles. Now let's assign some coordinates to two opposite corners. Personally, I always use a cooridnate of 1,1 for the lower left-hand corner. Let's stay with that convention. Therefore the upper right-hand corner coordinates are 10,5. Cut out the 9x4 box leaving about a half inch between the cut line and the box all the way around. Use an Exacto knife and a steel straightedge and make your cuts parallel to the box. We want nice straight cuts. Take this cut out piece of paper to your digitizer and tape it to the surface. You have an AutoCAD tablet overlay, printed out or mylar version taped to your digitizer right? Tape the paper to the digitizer aligning the bottom edge to one of the horizontal grid lines of the tablet overlay.

 

In AutoCAD start the Tablet command. Configure your tablet for "0" menus. That's right...no tablet menus. When prompted about whether or not you want to respecify the screen pointing area type "Y" then pick the lower left-hand corner of your tablet overlay (where you see the heavy black circle) and then the upper right-hand corner of your tablet overlay. These two points should be outside the edges of your taped down paper drawing.

 

Repeat the Tablet command but this time Calibrate your tablet. When prompted for pick points (you only really need two) select, in turn, the lower left-hand corner of the box you drew then the upper right-hand corner. When prompted for the coordinates enter 1,1 and 10,5 respectively. You may now digitize the stapler. It will be reproduced full size on your screen.