CAD floor plans

Start with Import floor plan and check the source drawing unit. Format, reading method, text and CAD recovery are together under Advanced settings. The background remains a visual reference: it creates neither routes nor snapping points.

Import the plant's DWG or DXF drawing as a background and draw the AGV network on top of it at the right scale. The floor plan is only visual: it never affects routing, snapping, selection or traffic.

Importing a drawing

1. Open the Background tab in the side panel (available in Draw and Simulate).
2. Choose the units. Original drawing units defaults to Automatic · file units, which uses the unit declared in the CAD file. Choose millimetres, centimetres, decimetres, metres, kilometres, inches or feet to override it. If the file declares no unit and you did not choose one, the app asks you.
3. Import. Click Import floor plan and select a .dwg or .dxf file. The app reads the file, analyses layers and prepares the visible content. Large drawings can take a few minutes; Stop import is always available.
4. Check the preview. The preview shows the Applied units. If something is missing or too much is included, press Change content, adjust the selection, and press Prepare preview.
5. Confirm. Press Use floor plan. The drawing is placed with its lower-left corner at (0, 0) and becomes part of the project.

During DWG upload, a progress bar shows the transferred amount and the speed when it can be measured. During analysis and conversion, the bar indicates activity without an estimated percentage. Preview preparation shows counts and progress whenever the total is known. Use Stop import to cancel the current operation.

Display formats

Three ways to display the floor plan are available under Advanced options. The default suits almost every drawing.

With the Automatic reading method, DWG files are uploaded to the studio's server for analysis. The browser receives the drawing data and prepares the selected display format. This requires a connection to the studio; a local installation uses its own Node server. ASCII DXF files are always read in a browser worker, regardless of the DWG reading method.

ODA alternative needs ODA File Converter installed on the server; it is not included in the standard online service, so it may be unavailable. No drawing is sent to external conversion services, and the original file is never modified.

Uploaded originals and intermediate results are temporary. In the online service, only the account that uploaded them can access them. They are deleted when the import is completed or cancelled, or after one hour of inactivity while the service is running. Temporary files left by a server crash require server cleanup. The background you confirm becomes part of the project.

Text and CAD recovery

These options, applied before Prepare preview, help with difficult files:

• Import text and Text size relative to CAD (25–200 %), to exclude texts or resize them independently of the plan;
• Recover hatch outlines, which draws HATCH boundaries as outlines (fills and patterns are not reproduced);
• Interpret zero normals on the XY plane, for entities exported without a valid normal.

The Import results report groups what happened: recoveries applied, import selections, approximate appearance (for example substitute fonts) and items that need review (for example missing external references).

Adjusting the background

• Show floor plan and Opacity are always available.
• Position and content collects the offset of the drawing and the visibility of individual layers, including layers inside blocks.
• Move to origin places the lower-left corner of the drawing at (0, 0), useful for projects imported before this became automatic.
• Remove floor plan deletes the background from the project (undoable).

Scale factor

Scale factor corrects the size after import: 1 keeps the imported size, 0.5 halves it, 2 doubles it. Confirm with Enter or by leaving the field. The factor is absolute relative to the import, the lower-left corner stays fixed, and it works for every format.

If you have already drawn on the background, leave Scale paths and stations too on (it appears once the layout contains something): paths, curves with their handles, stations, zones, measurements, texts and aisle positions are rescaled about the same corner, so they stay on the floor plan and nothing has to be redrawn. Links, directions, speeds and IDs do not change. Vehicles and warehouse cells keep their real size: with a smaller factor, an aisle that no longer fits its path loses bays at its far end and a notice names it. Background and layout change together and Ctrl+Z undoes both in one step; if the result is not valid (for example racks that overlap) nothing changes and the reason stays below the field until you correct the value or press Esc. Afterwards check the Network tab: with a larger factor, ends drawn a few millimetres apart can separate; with a smaller one, paths very close together can join. With the box cleared only the background is scaled.

Toggling layers from the canvas

With an accelerated vector background, the rail in Draw shows a Layers tool. Click an element of the floor plan to see its layers and switch them off or on. Show all layers restores the full drawing; Done or Esc closes the tool. Layer lists are sorted alphabetically with natural number order.

What is supported

2D model space plans: lines, polylines, arcs, circles, ellipses, points, blocks and dimension graphics already contained in the file. Texts respect nominal height, box width and direction; fonts and formatting are approximated with the bundled fonts (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and symbols).

Not supported or partially supported: WIPEOUT masks (objects they cover may show; hide the affected layers), non-standard OCS planes, splines, images and 3D objects, and external references (XREF) whose geometry is not embedded in the file. Print viewports are not part of the model space plan.

Limits and performance

The prepared background is compressed losslessly and stored in the .sim project, the draft and the undo history, so reopening a project never requires the original DWG. Not every DWG or DXF can be opened: for very large or unusual files, work on a simplified copy in your CAD tool.