Import AutoCAD DWG and DXF files

Scribble Maps imports AutoCAD drawings in both of its file formats: DWG (the native drawing file) and DXF (the exchange format every CAD program can write). The drawing's lines, curves, areas and text become shapes and labels on your map that you can style, measure and edit like anything you draw yourself.

A DWG keeps the most of the original drawing. Each CAD layer becomes its own folder. Shapes keep their colours, line weights and dashed line types. Hatches arrive with their hatching pattern. Text, block attributes and dimension values arrive as text labels at the size and angle they have on the drawing. A DXF imports its geometry and layer names only.

Which files import

DWG files up to 25 MB are converted for you. For a bigger drawing, save it as DXF in your CAD software and import the DXF instead.

How to import

1. Open your map in the editor.
2. Drag the .dwg or .dxf file onto the map. Or, at the top of the Layers panel, click the Import File icon and choose the file.
3. Pick your styling if you want to, then click IMPORT FILES.

The notice at the top of the map says Import Finished when the drawing is on the map. A DWG takes a few extra seconds: the file is converted on our servers and then imported.

Where the drawing lands

Most CAD drawings are not georeferenced. They measure distances from a drawing origin, in inches, feet, millimetres or metres, rather than in latitude and longitude. Scribble Maps handles both cases:

• The drawing has a coordinate system (rare; usually from survey or GIS software): the shapes land in their real place on the map.
• The drawing has no coordinate system (most DWG and DXF files): the drawing is scaled using the units saved in the file, and placed centred on the part of the map you are looking at. If the file does not record its units, a Select Units box asks you to choose them.

So before you import, pan and zoom the map to the site the drawing belongs to. After the import, select the shapes and move or rotate them into position over the imagery.

What comes through from a DWG

• Lines, polylines, arcs, circles, ellipses, splines and leaders become lines in the entity's colour, weight and dash pattern.
• Closed polylines, circles and full ellipses become outlines you can measure. They have no fill, as in the drawing.
• Hatches become filled areas drawn with the hatch's own line pattern (ANSI31 diagonals, crosshatch, brick and so on) in the hatch colour. A pattern too fine to show at the drawing's scale becomes a translucent fill.
• Solids and solid hatches become filled areas in the entity colour.
• Text, multi-line text, block attributes and dimension values become text labels at the height and angle they have on the drawing. They grow and shrink with the map, like the drawing itself.
• Points become markers.
• Block references (inserted symbols) bring the block's shapes, placed, scaled and rotated like the insert.
• Dimensions bring their lines, arrows and measurement text.
• Layers become a folder per layer, inside a folder for the file. Layers switched off or frozen are left out, and so is AutoCAD's Defpoints layer.

Colours follow AutoCAD. An entity set to "by layer" takes its layer's colour, "by block" takes the inserted block's colour, and the default "white" (colour 7) becomes black, as it does on paper. Geometry drawn on layer 0 inside a block belongs to the layer the block is inserted on, as in AutoCAD. 3D entities are flattened to their 2D footprint.

Text size and hatch spacing are sized for the drawing as a whole. Very small text in a very large drawing is shown at a readable minimum, and you can change any label's size afterwards.

Not imported: multileaders, tables, meshes, 3D solids, regions, images and PDF underlays, and construction lines. If something is missing, explode it in your CAD software and save again.

A DXF imports with less: geometry and layer names, drawn in the import style, with text on a layer named "text" becoming labels.

If the import ends with "Import Cancelled"

The notice says Import Cancelled when the file could not be imported. For a DWG that happens when:

• The file is not a DWG, whatever it is named. Check the file, or export it again.
• The drawing is from AutoCAD R13 or older. Save it as DXF, or as a 2000-or-newer DWG, and import that.
• The file is larger than 25 MB. Save it as DXF and import that.
• The file is corrupt, unusually complex, or uses a feature the converter does not know. Open it in your CAD software and save it as an AutoCAD 2000 DXF (ASCII). That reads in every case, with the reduced fidelity of a DXF import.
• Many drawings are converting at once. Wait a few seconds and import again.

Free tools that can save a DWG as DXF: the ODA File Converter, Autodesk DWG TrueView, LibreCAD and QGIS.

See also

• The list of file formats you can import
• The guide to importing files and data