Sparx Systems Forum

Enterprise Architect => General Board => Topic started by: EA_enthusiast on December 27, 2023, 02:16:57 am

Title: Importing or converting an architectural mode in PDF to EA. Possible?
Post by: EA_enthusiast on December 27, 2023, 02:16:57 am

Hello EA experts,

Is there any tool or a way to import/convert an architecture model in a PDF format to EA / EA file format?

Thank you!

Title: Re: Importing or converting an architectural mode in PDF to EA. Possible?
Post by: qwerty on December 27, 2023, 02:19:23 am

Simply: no, except for using eyes/brain/fingers to do the transformation.

q.

Title: Re: Importing or converting an architectural mode in PDF to EA. Possible?
Post by: EA_enthusiast on December 27, 2023, 03:36:19 am

Thank you, qwerty! I heard of some tools and addins that convert PDF to Visio. I was curious whether something similar exists for EA.

Title: Re: Importing or converting an architectural mode in PDF to EA. Possible?
Post by: steen.jensen on December 27, 2023, 10:16:15 am

Soon it should be possible for some AI.
Bing AI can describe element and relations from an Archimate jpg picture. It does not understand the Element-type yet, and I was trying to get the textual in Exchange Format but did not succed.
Maybe some payed version can do it already

Title: Re: Importing or converting an architectural mode in PDF to EA. Possible?
Post by: EA_enthusiast on December 30, 2023, 02:52:11 am

That makes sense, Steen. I would expect to see a reasonable solution to this problem in the next 1-2 years.

Title: Re: Importing or converting an architectural mode in PDF to EA. Possible?
Post by: Jan van Duuren on January 02, 2024, 11:57:13 pm

You could use NODEJS with a PDF text Reader package (npm) to open your EA repository and PDF-Files to create elements.
such script will not run inside EA, but on Windows itself.

Steps you would need are:

• download and install nodejs engine from Internet
• installl npm package 'winax' to use ActiveXObjects (COMObjects)
• install npm package 'pdf-text-reader'
• create a js script in which you:
• open your EA repository as ActiveXObject
• retrieve required info from PDF file
• create EA elements retrieved from PDF
• close EA repository

Title: Re: Importing or converting an architectural mode in PDF to EA. Possible?
Post by: EA_enthusiast on January 09, 2024, 06:35:30 am

Quote

You could use NODEJS with a PDF text Reader package (npm) to open your EA repository and PDF-Files to create elements.

Thank you, Jan, for sharing this. I am wondering whether you have tried this yourself and it worked for you?.

Title: Re: Importing or converting an architectural mode in PDF to EA. Possible?
Post by: Jan van Duuren on January 17, 2024, 06:50:27 pm

Yes, I did use it for retrieving some documentation from multiple PDFs.
I grabed all PFD files, itterate through each PDF file, searched for some fixed text (tags) and then inserted them as new elements in EA.
So it is doable and repeatable.

Title: Re: Importing or converting an architectural mode in PDF to EA. Possible?
Post by: EA_enthusiast on January 20, 2024, 04:03:44 am

This is nice! I should try it, then. Thank you, Jan.