From paper drawings to computer-aided design

The benefits of a fully integrated computer-aided design and drafting system (CADDS) database are today very well accepted by industry, and major engineering companies implementing CADDS are confronted with the gigantic task of entering the existing multidisciplinary engineering information into the CADDS database. The present investigation is concerned with the findings of a feasibility study which had been conducted by a Canadian company to explore data capture on engineering drawings. A review of the state of the art in digitization is presented, and attention is given to specific problems arising in the case of the Canadian company. It is found that substantial advancements have been made toward the automatic 'reading' of existing drawings on paper media. However, no system exists currently which fully automates the data capturing process in the engineering environment and generates intelligent databases for use by CADD systems. Suitable approaches for 'data capture' under the given conditions are discussed.