Improved PDF Rendering

In Cubit Estimating 9 we’ve drastically improved how PDF Plans looks in the Viewport, so they are even more accurate and detailed than before. PDF Plans loaded into Cubit Estimating will now be a closer representation of how they appear in your PDF reader.

PDF Plans now handle filled shapes, clipped shapes and vectorised text better and more intelligently.   

Filled Solids

Filled solids are regions within the PDF which are filled in with some element, usually a solid colour.

Cubit Estimating will now support filled solids with single colour.

Fig 1. Filled solids comparison

Clip shapes

Clip shapes are regions which will cause all elements within its boundary to be displayed in the PDF, and everything outside to be hidden.

Clip shapes are now fully supported for:

• Lines
• Outlines
• Filled solids
• Images
  

Fig 2. Clip shapes comparison

Vector Text

In previous versions, the default way to display text in a PDF was to attempt to find the matching font type within your computer. If it cannot find the desired font, Cubit Estimating will instead use the predefined default font instead.

This usually leads to problems due to the found font not exactly matching the font defined in the PDF file, leading to incorrect position and scaling of the text.

If your plan text still renders incorrectly, you can use the rasterise text option.

A more consistent way of displaying text from a PDF was discovered, which was converting the text into filled solids. Through this method, we can more reliably render text which have the correct position and scale without having to attempt to find the matching font.

Fig 3. Vector text comparison

Limitations

Unfortunately, the new text rendering method does not work for all plans. If we cannot create filled solids from the text, we will revert back to the old method.

There are still specific fills which can exist in a PDF which are not yet supported. These are:

• Patterned fills
• Transparent fills