Import a drawing

Read lot shapes out of a DWG, DXF or GeoJSON, see what the drawing actually yields, and decide whether it becomes the site map.

An engineer's drawing knows where the lots are. This page reads that out of the file and shows you what it found before any of it becomes your map.

It reads DWG, DXF and GeoJSON. File the drawing under the project in Documents and it appears here. Nothing is read until you press Analyse.

The filename does not tell you anything

We measured four real drawings while building this, and the file with the best lot lines in the set was a gas plan. A construction set was next. A grading plan, which sounds like the most site-shaped file of the four, produced almost nothing: its linework does not close, so there are no lot shapes in it to find.

That is why this page measures and shows rather than importing quietly. You are not being asked to trust a filename, and neither is PadFlow.

What you see

• A preview. The shapes the drawing yields, drawn on a plain background. Filled shapes matched a lot on your project. Faint outlines are lot-sized shapes that matched nothing.
• The numbers. Closed lots, how many lot numbers were found and how many of them matched a lot on the project, what share of the linework closes into shapes, and what share of your register the drawing covers.
• The coordinate system, and where it came from. From the drawing means the engineer said so in the file. Inferred means PadFlow worked it out from your project's jurisdiction, which is a good guess and still a guess: check the lots land where you expect before relying on it.
• A verdict, in plain language.

The verdicts

Recommended. The linework closes and the drawing covers most of your register. This is the file you want.

One phase. It closes well but only covers part of the register. Almost always a single phase. Importing it places those lots and leaves the rest alone.

Usable with gaps. Some of the linework does not close, so some lots will be missing. You can import it now and replace it later with a better drawing.

No coordinate system. The shapes are readable but PadFlow cannot place them on the earth. Pick a zone and it reads the drawing again.

Not suitable. Either nothing matched a lot on this project, or too little of the linework closes to be worth importing. The confirm button is switched off, and the reason says so. Ask the engineer for the final plat drawing: it is the sheet with lot numbers on closed lot lines, and it is the one that works.

The two answers

Use as project map writes the boundary of every matched lot, in one go. Either all of them land or none do; there is no half-imported state to unpick. Lots the drawing did not place keep whatever they had.

Decline, draw instead marks the reading declined and takes you to the draw tool on the overview. Nothing changes.

You never need a drawing

The site map works with no CAD file at all. You can draw the project boundary and each phase limit by hand, and every lot stays on the board whatever the map shows. A drawing that fails, times out, or gets declined leaves the map exactly as it was.

A lot outline drawn by hand and one written by an import are the same thing to every other part of PadFlow. Nothing anywhere asks which produced a shape.

Coming back to it

Import as often as you like. A later drawing overwrites the lots it places, once you have confirmed it, and leaves the others alone. Earlier readings stay listed at the bottom of the page with what happened to each.