It's like putting tracing paper over a drawing—only better.
Trace supplies a safe space for marking up and adding feedback to an AutoCAD drawing without any chance of altering the existing drawing. Autodesk chose this name for its product because it is like laying tracing paper over the drawing to add notes, comments and other markups.
You can add and contribute to traces from the desktop, mobile and web versions of AutoCAD. Meaning you can use it anytime, anywhere. Like layers, a drawing can have multiple traces, grouping the markups and notes.
Starting a Trace
A trace starts in the Traces palette. Although the desktop and web versions look slightly different, the process is the same. To get started, select New Trace.
AutoCAD automatically tags the new trace with your Autodesk account name (as you are the author) and the date. The drawing dims and a bold blue border appears as a visual clue that the trace mode is active.
With the trace active, use AutoCAD’s toolset to mark up the drawing with text, annotations and geometry. Everything works normally, except that the objects are contained within the active trace.
After saving the drawing, the trace becomes available for everyone accessing the drawing. When other users open the drawing, AutoCAD notifies them of any new traces. They can open the trace to review the changes. Note, you need to exit trace mode to save the drawing. You can do this by clicking the X in the Trace contextual toolbar.
Working with Traces
The avatar in the Trace palette shows who has contributed to the trace. Hover over a name to highlight their contributions.
Whether your own or someone else’s trace, to review or contribute to a trace, select it within the Trace palette. This launches the trace environment, which is highlighted with the same blue border around the drawing. You cannot change someone else’s contributions, but you can add to and modify your own contributions. Use the lightbulb to toggle the contribution visibility.
From the palette, right-click the menu to:
- Delete your trace with Delete; again, you can only delete the traces you created
- Remove your contributions with Delete My Contributions
- Rename to change the trace name
While in the trace environment, you can toggle between modes.
While TRACEFRONT is active, you are contributing to the trace. Although you can select objects in the drawing, they are locked and cannot be changed. You can, however, snap to these objects while adding to the trace.
With TRACEBACK active, the trace is in view mode (i.e., read only). You can now edit the drawing using the trace as a reference. Geometry added or changed affects the drawing.
While in TRACEBACK mode, use COPYFROMTRACE (you will need to type it) to copy objects from the trace into the drawing.
Use the Settings to adjust the opaqueness (transparency) of objects while in trace mode. The Overlay Effect manages the opaqueness of the tracing paper overlay. The higher the number, the opaquer the tracing paper effect. While in TRACEFRONT mode, use the Geometry in Trace slider to adjust the amount of fade for the drawing objects in the background.
Tips from Autodesk:
- TRACEOSNAP manages whether object snaps apply to trace geometry while you are viewing a trace.
- TRACEOSNAP only applies when TRACEBACK is on. When TRACEFRONT is on, object snaps always apply to trace geometry.
- When creating traces, it is good practice to choose colors that help differentiate the trace objects from the drawing object.
- AutoCAD retains the view when you are exiting the Trace environment. Therefore, it’s good practice to exit the environment with the view you want to share with others.
Integrating Markup Assist
Because drawing markups are typically captured digitally, like a photograph or scanned copy, Autodesk integrated markup import tools within the Trace environment.
To import a marked-up copy of a drawing into the original, select Markup Import from the Collaborate tab (Traces panel). Browse for and select the marked-up file (PDF, PNG or JPG). With PDFs, if the document has multiple sheets, you will be prompted to select the sheet for import.
The markup overlays the active drawing as a new trace. AutoCAD tries to align the markup with the original geometry. If the markup does not automatically line up correctly, use the options to Move, Rotate, Scale and Align it to the drawing properly.
Use the Drawing Background slider (from Settings) to control the opaqueness of the underlying drawing and Fade Markup to set the opaqueness of the imported markup.
With the markup overlaid and in position, use the option in the Trace toolbar to toggle the viewing mode. TRACEFRONT works with the trace and TRACEBACK works within the drawing, but the markup remains visible.
While in TRACEBACK mode, use Markup Assist to apply machine learning to analyze the imported markup and to find the text, leaders and revision clouds (and other markup objects) within it. AutoCAD draws rectangles around the found markups, making them easy to identify.
Select a found markup (the blue border) to insert it as an AutoCAD object into the drawing.
When finding a boundary (like a circle or rectangle), you can insert a rectangular revision cloud into the drawing. AutoCAD uses the markup’s border to set the size and shape. The markup automatically switches to faded mode. The inserted object takes on the properties of the current layer.
With text, AutoCAD allows you to edit the text prior to inserting it. This is useful because depending on the quality of the scanned drawing, AutoCAD may have incorrectly interpreted characters. You then insert the text as new multiline text (Insert as Mtext) or as a new multileader (Insert as Mleader).
Markup Assist recognizes PDF Comments (like those added via Acrobat). You can insert this comment text as multileaders or multitext.
Alternatively, with text, you can use Update Existing Text to append or replace existing drawing text. After selecting the text, choose Append to add the text to the end of the existing text or select Replace to replace the contents with the markup’s text.
Markup Assist recognizes crossed-out text and supplies options to delete the drawing’s text or replace it with text from the markup. After selecting the strikethrough markup:
- Pick Replace Existing Text, then select the drawing text and complete the operation by selecting the text in the markup to replace the existing text.
- With Erase Existing Text, you select the text in the drawing to remove.
Markup Assist interprets words like MOVE, COPY, DELETE and REMOVE, as instructions. Within the drawing, click on these found instructions to initiate the associated command.
Use Fade Markup to make the markup less noticeable within the trace—a method you can use to tag the markup as it is completed. You can also pick FADEMARKUP from the Trace toolbar and select the markups in the drawing canvas that you’d like to fade.
Best Practices
- Although Trace and Markup Import support 3D, both work best with 2D drawings.
- Keep images below 4K resolution or 144 dpi.
- With pictures of physical paper, ensure that the paper is brightly and evenly lit and do not include objects in the background other than the drawing paper. If necessary, crop the image prior to importing it into AutoCAD.
- With physical paper pictures, take the picture from directly above the paper to avoid acute angles and distortion.
- Avoid colored pencils and highlighters, which make it more difficult to find the markup from the underlying drawing.
Markup Import and Markup Assist are not available for AutoCAD LT. Because AutoCAD processes markups in the cloud, an Internet connection is needed to use Markup Import and Markup Assist.
All Markup Import features are available in the AutoCAD web and mobile apps; however, Markup Assist is not. The AutoCAD mobile app allows you to import a photo directly from the device’s camera.
