Autodesk® AutoCAD® has no Bind option available to bind raster images to a drawing. JTB Raster2OLE app for AutoCAD will help you to do that.

Run Raster2OLE and all raster images in the drawing will be converted to OLE objects.

Run Raster2OLE_Batch and all raster images in the drawing will be converted to OLE objects on multiple selected drawing files.

You may have company logos or other images (raster files) attached but customer or project CAD requirements might say that no external files are allowed.

What are Raster Images? Raster images consist of a rectangular grid of small squares or dots known as pixels. For example, a photograph of a house is made up of a series of pixels colorized to represent the appearance of a house. A raster image references the pixels in a specific grid. Common file formats are: .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .tif, .tiff.

What is OLE? Object Linking & Embedding is a proprietary technology developed by Microsoft that allows embedding and linking to documents and other objects. Microsoft Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) is a Microsoft Windows technology, which does not work in AutoCAD for Mac. When you open a drawing that contains an OLE object, it does not display in AutoCAD for Mac.

In Autodesk's Revit when exporting to DWG all images are attached to the exported drawing as external references just as "Attach Image" or IMAGEATTACH is used within AutoCAD. The dialog box "Modify DWG/DXF Export Setup" (accessed via Export>CAD Formats>DWG or DXF, alternatively via Export>Options>Export Setups DWG/DXF) does not have any setting that will bind or embed images in the exported file.

In AutoCAD External References Palette there is no Bind for image references and there is no Bind option for the -IMAGE command either. Raster image files are also included as separate files when using the ETransmit command even when "Bind external references" is used because it only binds DWG files.

Current limitations:

• Images that are clipped, brightness adjusted, contrast adjusted, fade adjusted, with background transparency are not retaining their settings.
• AutoCAD doesn't support high resolution OLE image (possibly above 1600x1200 pixels). OLE image might turn out to be blank.
• Raster image nested inside a rotated block is not supported.
• Polar array object of raster images is not supported.
• Clipped raster image is not supported.

If any of this needs to be addressed contact us.

This app works on AutoCAD 2013 and 2014 in addition to newer versions of AutoCAD.

Once installed, the app is running in Trial Mode, with Trial License. The trial License will expire 15 days after the first usage. In Trial Mode, you can use the Raster2OLE command only.

For more about this app see our JTB Raster2OLE page.

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Note: This app uses a custom installer (not the standard App Store installer).