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Importing a DWG/DXF

How to reference AutoCAD-based data in your Arcol Project

Written by Kyle Bernhardt

Arcol currently supports importing both 2D and 3D DWG and DXF files (for brevity, just “DWG” is used in the rest of this article) for site boundaries, custom terrain, and other geometric reference use cases.
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Import directly to project as a geometry reference

To import a DWG as a reference in your 3D View:

  1. From an open 3D view:

    1. go to top-left main menu → File → Import → DWG/DXF and click the Choose a file button in the menu that appears to open the file browser. Select the DWG and any .prj or .wld3 together and click the Open button on the menu.
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    2. Or, drag and drop a DWG into the project canvas directly.

  2. Set the desired positioning and units. There are four positioning options: Georeferenced, Manual, Center to center, and Origin to origin.

    • Units should match the units used in the DWG, and are automatically inferred from the selected Coordinate System for Georeferenced.

  3. Placement then depends on the positioning you chose:

    • Georeferenced - your DWG is automatically placed at the correct position according to real-world units in the DWG and the georeferenced coordinates from the selected location of the Arcol Project at creation.

    • Manual - click anywhere in the project to place the DWG origin at the picked point in the Arcol Project coordinates.

    • Center to center - the geometric center of the DWG aligns with the geometric center of the project.

    • Origin to origin - the coordinate system origin of the DWG aligns with the coordinate system origin of the project.

Once imported this way, the DWG geometry may be used as a snapping reference by any of the Arcol drawing tools, such as building outlines.

To import a DWG as an underlay in your 2D Floor Plan View:

  1. From an open 2D Floor Plan, on the view Tab of the right sidebar, select the import icon to the right of the Underlay header to open the file browser -> Select the DWG and any .prj or .wld3 together and click the Open button on the menu.
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  2. Set the desired positioning and units. There are two positioning options: Georeferenced or Center to center.

    • Units should match the units used in the DWG, and are automatically inferred from the selected Coordinate System for Georeferenced.

  3. Placement then depends on the positioning you chose:

    • Georeferenced - your DWG is automatically placed at the correct position according to real-world units in the DWG and the georeferenced coordinates from the selected location of the Arcol Project at creation.

    • Center to center - the geometric center of the DWG aligns with the geometric center of the open Floor Plan View.

Once imported this way, the DWG geometry may be used as a snapping reference by any of the Arcol drawing tools, such as floor sketch lines.
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Import as custom terrain and site boundaries

You can also use a DWG as a source of custom terrain or site boundaries when setting up a project location.

  1. Open the Project Location picker when first creating a project: or click Set project location in the right sidebar to open the project location menu if a project has no location set.
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  2. At the bottom of the menu, next to Terrain, click Import — or next to Site boundary, click Import.

  3. Click Choose a file. Select the DWG and any .prj or .wld3 files together in one
    selection.

  4. Select the desired positioning and units: Manual or Georeferenced

    1. Units should match the units used in the DWG, and are automatically inferred from the selected Coordinate System for Georeferenced.

  5. Click Import, then complete the project location flow.

Once imported this way:

  • For site boundaries, the imported DWG will define sites available for selection.

  • For custom terrain, the imported DWG will be used as contours for project terrain once the project location flow is completed.

Georeferencing mechanics

A georeferenced drawing has its geometry in a specified Coordinate system. Picking Georeferenced as a positioning option and selecting a Coordinate system tells Arcol how to correctly position the DWG relative to the Arcol project location.

Prerequisite: If placing as reference geometry into a project, your Arcol project needs a location set before you import a georeferenced DWG.
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Automatically georeferenced files

Arcol looks for any of these signals to determine if a file is georeferenced:

  • A geographic location set in AutoCAD. Run GEOGRAPHICLOCATION in AutoCAD 2009 or later and save.

  • A Drawing exported from ArcGIS. ArcGIS writes DWG files with an ESRI_PRJ record which contains the coordinate system.

  • A .prj file alongside the DWG. Select the .prj file at the same time as the DWG during import using multi-select in the File Browser. This file contains the coordinate system definition. If there’s also an accompanying .wld3 file, select that as well.

If Arcol detects any of those signals it will automatically select Georeferenced as the positioning option and pre-select the correct Coordinate system.
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Manually georeferenced files

In cases where the DWG file is georeferenced but Arcol wasn’t able to automatically detect the Coordinate system you can manually pick Georeferenced as the positioning option and select a Coordinate system. In that case Arcol will use your selection to position the DWG.

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