topic Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation in Alfresco Archive

Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

konsultex — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:23:33 GMT

I need to transform dwg files to pdf for read access by a group pf users in another space. I know that this is not something Alfresco does out of the box but I wonder if anyone has a suggestions. I imagine that there is some tool that can be called from the command line to do this. This leads to ano

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

steve — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:14:12 GMT

Hi,

Our Wiki contains info on how to add your own transformer to perform what you want:
http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Content_Transformations

Note, you'll need to have a tool that can perform the conversion you want to be able to plug in.

Hope this helps,

Steve

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

konsultex — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 02:12:31 GMT

Steve;

Thanks for the link. The tool I found (in case you run in Windows) is the converter from this company: http://www.autodwg.com/ It has a command line option to convert a single file. I tested the quality of the conversion and it is pretty good for the use I need it for. So now I have to see how to plug this into Alfresco.

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

konsultex — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:32:04 GMT

I found the code for "RuntimeExecutableContentTransformer" which is probably the one I want. My transformation command is:

d2p.exe /InFile source-file-name /OutFile destination-pdf-file-name

Can you tell me if I have to change things in the source and compile a class and/or if I just need to change these lines as in the Wiki page (http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Content_Transformations#RuntimeExecutableContentTransformer😞

<entry key="Windows.*">
<value>tidy -asxhtml -o "${target}" "${source}"</value>
</entry>

(other lines as well)

to:

<entry key="Windows.*">
<value>d2p.exe /InFile "${target}" /OutFile "${source}"</value>
</entry>

If the latter case, are these lines supposed to go in my-transformers-context.xml and/or somewhere else?

Thanks.

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

konsultex — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:17:40 GMT

After some more investigations and testing I think I found the way to do this but I am getting an error.

here is what I did:

a) C:\Alfresco\tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco\extension\mimetypes-custom-extension.xml has:

<alfresco-config area="mimetype-map">

   <config evaluator="string-compare" condition="Mimetype Map">
      <mimetypes>

         <mimetype mimetype="image/vnd.dwg" display="Example mimetype">
            <extension default="true">pcl</extension>
         </mimetype>

      </mimetypes>
   </config>

b) C:\Alfresco\tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco\extension\transformers-custom-context.xml has:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC '-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN' 'http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd'>

<beans>

   <bean id="transformer.d2p" class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.RuntimeExecutableContentTransformer" parent="baseContentTransformer">
      <property name="explicitTransformations">
         <list>
            <bean class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ContentTransformerRegistry$TransformationKey" >
      <constructor-arg><value>image/vnd.dwg</value></constructor-arg>
                <constructor-arg><value>application/pdf</value></constructor-arg>
            </bean>
         </list>
      </property>

      <property name="checkCommand">
         <bean class="org.alfresco.util.exec.RuntimeExec">
            <property name="commandMap">
                <map>
                    <entry key=".*">
                        <value>d2p.exe /InFile c:\001.dwg /OutFile c:\001.pdf</value>
                    </entry>
                </map>
            </property>
       <property name="errorCodes">
               <value>2</value>
            </property>
         </bean>
      </property>

      <property name="transformCommand">
         <bean class="org.alfresco.util.exec.RuntimeExec">
            <property name="errorCodes">
               <value>2</value>
            </property>
            <property name="commandMap">
                <map>
                    <entry key="Linux">
                        <value>d2p.exe /InFile '${source}' /OutFile '${target}'</value>
                    </entry>
                    <entry key="Windows.*">
                        <value>d2p.exe /InFile "${source}" /OutFile "${target}"</value>
                    </entry>
                </map>
            </property>
         </bean>
      </property>
   </bean>

</beans>

c) I verified that the line d2p.exe /InFile c:\001.dwg /OutFile c:\001.pdf works because d2p.exe is on the server PATH and 001.pdf was created. I do it this way because otherwise d2p.exe brings up a dialog box and waits for user input. Alfresco knows about my mime type because when I upload a dwg file it shows the default content type to be AutoCAD drawing.

d) I created a rule that converts *.dwg (I also tried it with mime type "AutoCAD drawing") to pdf in the same space.

Notice that I did not compile any classes.

What happens is that after I upload a dwg file right after I hit "Ok" I get an error. This is the relevant portion of it:

16:31:59,031 ERROR [org.alfresco.web.ui.common.Utils] A system error happened during the operation: Unknown Exception in Transaction.
org.alfresco.error.AlfrescoRuntimeException: Unknown Exception in Transaction.
   at org.alfresco.repo.transaction.RetryingTransactionHelper.doInTransaction(RetryingTransactionHelper.java:292)
   at org.alfresco.repo.transaction.RetryingTransactionHelper.doInTransaction(RetryingTransactionHelper.java:155)
   at org.alfresco.web.bean.dialog.BaseDialogBean.finish(BaseDialogBean.java:120)
etc, etc, etc….

and then:

Caused by: javax.transaction.RollbackException: Transaction didn't commit: No transformation exists between mimetypes image/x-dwg and application/pdf
   at org.alfresco.util.transaction.SpringAwareUserTransaction.commit(SpringAwareUserTransaction.java:430)
   at org.alfresco.repo.transaction.RetryingTransactionHelper.doInTransaction(RetryingTransactionHelper.java:239)
   … 32 more
Caused by: org.alfresco.service.cmr.repository.NoTransformerException: No transformation exists between mimetypes image/x-dwg and application/pdf
   at org.alfresco.repo.action.executer.TransformActionExecuter.executeImpl(TransformActionExecuter.java:189)
   at org.alfresco.repo.action.executer.ActionExecuterAbstractBase.execute(ActionExecuterAbstractBase.java:120)
   at org.alfresco.repo.action.ActionServiceImpl.directActionExecution(ActionServiceImpl.java:537)
etc, etc, etc.

So it looks like my transformation tool is not recognized.

Does anything else need to be configured?

Thanks.

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

konsultex — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:37:38 GMT

Sorry I made a mistake with the mime types. The correct content of the files is:

a) C:\Alfresco\tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco\extension\mimetypes-custom-extension.xml has:

<alfresco-config area="mimetype-map">

   <config evaluator="string-compare" condition="Mimetype Map">
      <mimetypes>

         <mimetype mimetype="image/x-dwg" display="Desenho AutoCAD">
            <extension default="true">dwg</extension>
         </mimetype>

      </mimetypes>
   </config>

b) C:\Alfresco\tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco\extension\transformers-custom-context.xml has:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC '-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN' 'http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd'>

<beans>

   <bean id="transformer.d2p" class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.RuntimeExecutableContentTransformer" parent="baseContentTransformer">
      <property name="explicitTransformations">
         <list>
            <bean class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ContentTransformerRegistry$TransformationKey" >
      <constructor-arg><value>image/x-dwg</value></constructor-arg>
                <constructor-arg><value>application/pdf</value></constructor-arg>
            </bean>
         </list>
      </property>

      <property name="checkCommand">
         <bean class="org.alfresco.util.exec.RuntimeExec">
            <property name="commandMap">
                <map>
                    <entry key=".*">
                        <value>d2p.exe /InFile c:\001.dwg /OutFile c:\001.pdf</value>
                    </entry>
                </map>
            </property>
       <property name="errorCodes">
               <value>2</value>
            </property>
         </bean>
      </property>

      <property name="transformCommand">
         <bean class="org.alfresco.util.exec.RuntimeExec">
            <property name="errorCodes">
               <value>2</value>
            </property>
            <property name="commandMap">
                <map>
                    <entry key="Linux">
                        <value>d2p.exe /InFile '${source}' /OutFile '${target}'</value>
                    </entry>
                    <entry key="Windows.*">
                        <value>d2p.exe /InFile "${source}" /OutFile "${target}"</value>
                    </entry>
                </map>
            </property>
         </bean>
      </property>
   </bean>

</beans>

This configuration creates the pdf file.

I still have a problem though because the pdf file is empty (0 bytes). If I run the d2p.exe tool manually I get the correct pdf. It's just inside Alfresco that it fails somewhat.

I would like to look at a log to see what is going on. Any pointers of how to make Alfresco log DEBUG for the transformes?

Thanks.

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

konsultex — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:52:03 GMT

Well, I figured out what was wrong.

The line:

d2p.exe /InFile '${source}' /OutFile '${target}'

can not have the sigle quotation marks. I was not aware what they were for but I think that Alfresco sends them to the tool which does not like that. So I remved them and now my conversion works perfectly.

Like this:

d2p.exe /InFile ${source} /OutFile ${target}

I hope this can help anybody that has a similar problem.

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

alexr — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:21:57 GMT

While testing the evaluation versions of both p2d.exe (http://anydwg.com/) and acs.exe (http://www.autodwg.com/), I found out
that I could not find "text" within the converted pdf's (in Adobe Reader).
The drawings contain text entries.
Now this could be the restraint for the evaluation version, but has anybody encountered an issue with text inside pdf from converted AutoCAD drawings?

- When transforming to pdf and configuring the transformation as described in this thread, how then will the text inside the pdf drawing be indexed?
- If not automatically then how should one configure the DWG to PDF transformation and then Full Text index the resulting PDF file?
- Will the converted pdf be automatically used in the Share pdf2swf transformation? (for the Flash document viewer)?

Regards,

Alex

PS: Has anybody found an equivalent (command line) conversion tool for MicroStation drawings (dgn)?

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

fast3r — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:39:02 GMT

Hi,
I'm fighting with transformations and thumbnails and I'm going crazy.
I don't know if it's the correct board, but it's related to this topic.

I want to add the web preview in Alfresco Share for DWG (AutoCAD) files.
I correctly configured the transformation for the image thumbnails for the documents list, but I'm not able to see the flash web preview!
I have created a complex transformation: DWG -> PDF -> SWF. The single conversions work, but when I access the web preview page the ComplexContentTransformer is called but not used, because I cannot see any swf file nor pdf file in the tomcat temp folder.
I think that's because DWG's mimetype is "image/x-dwg", that's recognized by ImageMagick, and it tries to open it.
I don't know if I have to set something in the Alfresco Thumbnail system for activating the preview for a new mime type.

Please help me, I'm stuck!

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

fast3r — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:21:14 GMT

I answer myself.
To enable previews of image types not supported by ImageMagick and SwfPreviewer, you need to modify the file tomcat\webapps\share\components\preview\web-preview.js

on line 279 (in Alfresco 3.0):

if (this.options.mimeType.match(/^image\/\w+/))‍

if (this.options.mimeType.match(/^image\/\w+/) && !this.options.mimeType.match(/image\/x-dwg/))‍

Eventually specifying each type of image you want to be converted to swf before previewing.

Hope this is helpful.

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

morze — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:01:03 GMT

fast3r
Please, tell me more in detail how you have created a complex transformation DWG -> PDF -> SWF.
Тhank you!

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

fast3r — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:21:01 GMT

I'll write down a small tutorial as soon as I can!

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

morze — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:14:41 GMT

With hope we will wait…
Thanks!

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

fast3r — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:34:13 GMT

Here I am, hope it's useful.

To implement DWG file web previews, you need two conversions: DWG -> PDF -> SWF:

The first conversion is made (in a Windows environment) with IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.com/), a free utility, to install with two plugins named InPDF.dll and CS_DWG.dll (this one costs about 9 dollars for each user). You can install IrfanView under Alfresco/bin for simplifying.
To convert from PDF to SWF we use the default command line utility used by Alfresco, Pdf2Swf.

You can add these lines to the alfresco debugger config file in case of troubles (tomcat\webapps\alfresco\WEB-INF\classes\log4j.properties😞

log4j.logger.org.alfresco.util.exec.RuntimeExec=DEBUG
log4j.logger.org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ContentTransformerRegistry=DEBUG
log4j.logger.org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.AbstractContentTransformer2=DEBUG
log4j.logger.org.alfresco.repo.thumbnail.ThumbnailServiceImpl=DEBUG‍‍‍‍

The trasformation definition can be made in tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco/extension/transformers-custom-context.xml file

The file content will be the following:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC '-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN' 'http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd'>

<beans>

<!– TRASFORMA DWG IN PDF   –>
<bean id="transformer.worker.dwg2pdf" class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.RuntimeExecutableContentTransformerWorker"> 
        <property name="mimetypeService">
            <ref bean="mimetypeService" />
        </property>
        <property name="checkCommand">
            <bean class="org.alfresco.util.exec.RuntimeExec">
                <property name="commandsAndArguments">
                    <map>
                        <entry key=".*">
                            <list>
                <value>C:\Alfresco\bin\IrfanView\i_view32.exe</value>
                <value>C:\Alfresco\bin\IrfanView\jtp.gif</value>
                <value>/convert=C:\Alfresco\bin\IrfanView\jtp.png</value>
                            </list>
                        </entry>
                    </map>
                </property>
            </bean>
        </property>

        <property name="transformCommand">
            <bean class="org.alfresco.util.exec.RuntimeExec">
                <property name="commandsAndArguments">
                    <map>
                        <entry key=".*">
                            <list>
                <value>C:\Alfresco\bin\IrfanView\i_view32.exe</value>
                <value>${source}</value>
                <value>/convert=${target}</value>
                            </list>
                        </entry>
                    </map>
                </property>
                <property name="errorCodes">
                    <value>1,2</value>
                </property>
            </bean>
        </property>

    <property name="explicitTransformations">
            <list>
                <bean class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ExplictTransformationDetails">
                    <property name="sourceMimetype"><value>image/x-dwg</value></property>
                    <property name="targetMimetype"><value>application/pdf</value></property>
                </bean>
            </list>
        </property>  
    </bean>
   
  <bean id="transformer.dwg2pdf" class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ProxyContentTransformer" parent="baseContentTransformer">
        <property name="worker">
            <ref bean="transformer.worker.dwg2pdf" />
        </property>
    </bean>



 <!– TRASFORMA DWG IN PNG (miniature) –>
    <bean id="transformer.complex.dwg2pdf.Image"
        class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ComplexContentTransformer"
        parent="baseContentTransformer" >
      <property name="transformers">
         <list>
            <ref bean="transformer.dwg2pdf" />
            <ref bean="transformer.complex.PDF.Image" />
         </list>
      </property>
      <property name="intermediateMimetypes">
         <list>
            <value>application/pdf</value>
         </list>
      </property>
   </bean>



<!–      TRASFORMA DWG IN SWF (complex)    –>
    <bean id="transformer.complex.dwg2pdf.Pdf2swf"
        class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ComplexContentTransformer"
        parent="baseContentTransformer" >
      <property name="transformers">
         <list>
            <ref bean="transformer.dwg2pdf" />
            <ref bean="transformer.Pdf2swf" />
         </list>
      </property>
      <property name="intermediateMimetypes">
         <list>
            <value>application/pdf</value>
         </list>
      </property>
      <property name="explicitTransformations">
         <list>
               <bean class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ExplictTransformationDetails" >
                       <property name="sourceMimetype"><value>image/x-dwg</value></property>
                       <property name="targetMimetype"><value>application/x-shockwave-flash</value></property>
            </bean>
         </list>
      </property>    
   </bean>
           
</beans>
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

AutoCAD file mimetype is "image/x-dwg".
To avoid dwg files being treated as image types (causing a failure of WebPreviewer.swf), you need to modify the file tomcat\webapps\share\components\preview\web-preview.js

on line 279 (in Alfresco 3.0) you need to change:

if (this.options.mimeType.match(/^image\/\w+/))‍

with

if (this.options.mimeType.match(/^image\/\w+/) && !this.options.mimeType.match(/image\/x-dwg/))‍

This should be done for each "image/*" file format that ImageMagick can't read.

The same procedure can be followed for each custom file type that you want to be previewed by Share.

I apologize if I've made something that's not perfectly in line with the Alfresco specifications. BTW, it works!

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

morze — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:08:17 GMT

Thanks huge!
I will try, only at me - debian… I will try under wine to use

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

mycroes — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:39:20 GMT

Nice to see that my example is already used! (I added it to the wiki).

AutoCAD file mimetype is "image/x-dwg".
To avoid dwg files being treated as image types (causing a failure of WebPreviewer.swf), you need to modify the file tomcat\webapps\share\components\preview\web-preview.js

on line 279 (in Alfresco 3.0) you need to change:
if (this.options.mimeType.match(/^image\/\w+/))‍
with
if (this.options.mimeType.match(/^image\/\w+/) && !this.options.mimeType.match(/image\/x-dwg/))‍
This should be done for each "image/*" file format that ImageMagick can't read.

The same procedure can be followed for each custom file type that you want to be previewed by Share.

I apologize if I've made something that's not perfectly in line with the Alfresco specifications. BTW, it works!

I didn't do this, and it works as expected. I don't know what causes this inconvenience for you, but when there's a converter to SWF available I don't think you need to change it… Anyway, I also made a converter that uses the same approach as the DWG to SWF converter as outlined on the wiki, but converting to thumbnail in last step, so I also have thumbnails generated from the DWGs.

Also, if you want to offer your PDF files to customers or anything I'd suggest using a converter that generates vector PDF files. One way of doing this is by chaining cad2svg (http://etc.nkadesign.com/Download/Cad2svg) and the Apache Batik Rasterizer (http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/batik/).
Regards,

Michael

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

fast3r — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:29:28 GMT

Nice to see that my example is already used! (I added it to the wiki).

Which example? I can't find it!

AutoCAD file mimetype is "image/x-dwg".
To avoid dwg files being treated as image types (causing a failure of WebPreviewer.swf), you need to modify the file tomcat\webapps\share\components\preview\web-preview.js…

I didn't do this, and it works as expected. I don't know what causes this inconvenience for you, but when there's a converter to SWF available I don't think you need to change it… Anyway, I also made a converter that uses the same approach as the DWG to SWF converter as outlined on the wiki, but converting to thumbnail in last step, so I also have thumbnails generated from the DWGs.

I don't know why, that could be because I'm still using Alfresco 3.0 Stable, without this modification, the preview couldn't be displayed. BTW, good for you!
I skipped the code for DWG thumbnails in the "tutorial", but you're right, it's very simple and could be useful.

Also, if you want to offer your PDF files to customers or anything I'd suggest using a converter that generates vector PDF files. One way of doing this is by chaining cad2svg (http://etc.nkadesign.com/Download/Cad2svg) and the Apache Batik Rasterizer (http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/batik/).

Great! Thank you very much, I did not find any DWG converter in Linux, that's why I was using Windows apps…

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

mycroes — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:17:37 GMT

Nice to see that my example is already used! (I added it to the wiki).

Which example? I can't find it!

This one: http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Content_Transformations#RuntimeExecutableContentTransformerWorker_.28Alfresco_.3E.3D3.2.29. I was under the impression you used that as base for the latest transformer you posted.

I don't know why, that could be because I'm still using Alfresco 3.0 Stable, without this modification, the preview couldn't be displayed. BTW, good for you!

I'm on Community Edition 3.2r2, might be the difference.

Great! Thank you very much, I did not find any DWG converter in Linux, that's why I was using Windows apps…

Depending on the type of business you are in (or your company is in) it might be worth the money to join the OpenDesign alliance (http://www.opendwg.org/), they offer a library which you can use to read DWG files and included is also a PDF export library (including partial source). Cad2Svg is based on an older version of the same library, meanwhile compatibility between the library and AutoCAD DWG files has improved a bit, so if you have any DWG files that you can't convert well with cad2svg this could be very appealing.
Regards,

Michael

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

fast3r — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:29:46 GMT

This one: http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Content_Transformations#RuntimeExecutableContentTransformerWorker_.28Alfresco_.3E.3D3.2.29. I was under the impression you used that as base for the latest transformer you posted.

Of course I used it… it actually saved me a LOT of time, really good job!
I thought you were talking about some other wiki.

Depending on the type of business you are in (or your company is in) it might be worth the money to join the OpenDesign alliance (http://www.opendwg.org/), they offer a library which you can use to read DWG files and included is also a PDF export library (including partial source). Cad2Svg is based on an older version of the same library, meanwhile compatibility between the library and AutoCAD DWG files has improved a bit, so if you have any DWG files that you can't convert well with cad2svg this could be very appealing.

At the moment we just need basic support for AutoCAD, I just care that this tool (as well as the IrfanView plugin does) can read the newest AutoCAD version DWGs.
Thank you again, I'll try cad2svg first!

Re: Autocad (dwg) to pdf transformation

morze — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:06:11 GMT

It possible to use - libredwg?
http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/LibreDWG
http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/libredwg/
Ideas?