scanning a large document

[jim shula]

I bought some boat plans for a small 6' sailing dinghy. They came with full size drawings of the various parts. Instead of tracing the parts and cutting them out by hand, I'd like to digitize them so I can cut them on the bot. The drawings are on a large sheet of paper measuring approx. 4'x8'. Are there places that have the ability to scan something this large? If I had a pdf or jpeg of it I could load it into Aspire and do a bitmap trace of the shapes.

[Davo]

Turboscan - Apple app that creates pdfs from images

Just snap a pic

Even allows you to align & square the image after its taken

[James M]

Davo is correct that there are apps that will allow to take a picture and convert it to a pdf. You will have to be careful because some distortion can creep in depending on your technique. Another option is to take it to a print shop that can scan large images.

Cheers,

James

[jim shula]

Thanks for the quick replies. I measured and the plans are 3' x 9' with all the boat parts contained therein.

[tri4sale]

Fedex/Kinko's should be able to scan that in, if you've got one near you. I've scanned some large plans in for same reason, I think it had to be under 4 feet wide, no limit on the length. Was very cheap when I did it last year.

[donek]

When photographic this sort of stuff you want to back up and zoom in. You'll see the most distortion when shooting close with a wide angle lens.