[ggcdn]

I work in an industry that marks up PDFs extensively (construction) and have wanted to build a bespoke PDF markup tool for a long time. In designing concrete floor slabs, we need to transfer information from our FEA software to a dwg. Currently a blank plan is printed, it’s marked up by hand, and then handed to a drafter to put back into the computer. It’s a very inefficient process. But all the SDKs are stupidly expensive (this one included). It’s really surprising there isn’t something open source, given the importance of PDF markup in many industries and businesses.

[ct520]

What's preventing this being done with a ipad, pencil, and a myriad of pdf viewer/markup apps out there?

[ggcdn]

I didn’t clarify that the tool needs to store the information so it can be imported into CAD, rather than just being hand scribbled lines and numbers.

[ct520]

Ahh gotcha. This should still be straight forward. Just don’t know of a generic format to export overlays/cordinates.

Everyone has a opinion on how this should be done and measured and there are different standards for pdf libraries and print etc. not complicated though.

[ggcdn]

That was my feeling as well - it’s not necessarily complicated, it’s just so niche as to not have anyone making it. Today I found this GitHub repo which I may try tinkering with on the weekend:

https://github.com/highkite/pdfAnnotate

[ct520]

yeah, main things are tracking overlay collision, groups like radio buttons, where you start your measurements from top left or bottom, dpi, and zoom levels. built systems for it using itext and websupergoo abcpdf. (backend for manipulating pdfs, tamper sealing etc.) and front end uses a image of the rendered pdf page that was extracted. This is a bit different from pdfjs but also scales well. PS pdf standards suck. :(

[rusticpenn]

Libre Office Draw should be able to do this...