Extract vectors from pdf

Are there any options to extract vectors from PDF using Bentley products or cloud services? There are many convertors to dwg but it is not straight forward. It would also be enough to have snap to vectors so attaching as reference would be ok.

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  • Are there any options to extract vectors from PDF?

    As you know, we can attach a PDF in MicroStation as a raster reference.

    Bentley Systems have not revealed why they have not provided a vector converter for PDF.  Here's my conjecture...

    A PDF file uses PostScript to describe its textual and vector content.  PostScript was designed as a page-description language.  Vectors are as precise as is needed for page layout — rather like a DGN7 file uses 32-bit integer coordinates.  But page-level precision requires only 16-bit integer, so a PDF/PostScript file may be imprecise when converted to DGN format.  I suspect that Bentley Systems don't want to offer an imprecise translator.

    A PDF can contain raster images as well as vector data.  What should a translator do when extracting vectors and rasters: what scaling should be applied to vector and what scaling should be applied to raster?

    It's true that the latest versions of PDF offer 3D and greater precision — but a PDF=>DGN translator may not be able to rely on that.

     
    Regards, Jon Summers
    LA Solutions

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  • Are there any options to extract vectors from PDF?

    As you know, we can attach a PDF in MicroStation as a raster reference.

    Bentley Systems have not revealed why they have not provided a vector converter for PDF.  Here's my conjecture...

    A PDF file uses PostScript to describe its textual and vector content.  PostScript was designed as a page-description language.  Vectors are as precise as is needed for page layout — rather like a DGN7 file uses 32-bit integer coordinates.  But page-level precision requires only 16-bit integer, so a PDF/PostScript file may be imprecise when converted to DGN format.  I suspect that Bentley Systems don't want to offer an imprecise translator.

    A PDF can contain raster images as well as vector data.  What should a translator do when extracting vectors and rasters: what scaling should be applied to vector and what scaling should be applied to raster?

    It's true that the latest versions of PDF offer 3D and greater precision — but a PDF=>DGN translator may not be able to rely on that.

     
    Regards, Jon Summers
    LA Solutions

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