DXF electrical plan: loading as an underlay and exporting to CAD

Avenler loads an existing architectural plan from DXF as an underlay and exports the finished electrical plan to DXF: in millimetres, organised by layer (walls, devices by symbol group, cable routes by system), with devices as blocks by default, so you can keep working on it in a CAD program.

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DXF in electrical design

DXF is the drawing format CAD programs commonly use for exchange. Avenler uses it in two ways: you can load an existing architectural plan from DXF as an underlay, and you can export the finished electrical plan to DXF so you can keep working on it in a CAD program. The program processes and produces DXF in the browser.

Loading a DXF as an underlay

• What is loaded: you draw on top of the underlay. The program turns the DXF into a simplified line drawing: lines, polylines, circles, arcs, ellipses, splines and inserted blocks are carried over. Text, dimension lines and hatching are left out.
• Unit: taken from the file's $INSUNITS value; if the file does not specify it, you choose it when loading.
• Layers: the DXF's layers can be switched on and off, so only the architectural layers you need appear under the electrical plan.
• Snapping: wall drawing snaps to the DXF's points, so walls can be drawn exactly on the underlay's lines.
• Adjustment: the underlay's transparency, offset and rotation can be adjusted, and it can be locked and replaced; removing it does not affect the walls you have drawn.
• Size: the underlay file can be at most 8 MB.

The program loads a DXF as an underlay; there is no separate “walls from DXF” function: the walls have to be drawn. Images (PNG, JPEG) and PDFs can be loaded too; see the electrical floor plan maker page.

Exporting the electrical plan to DXF

The DXF menu in the top bar saves the floor being edited to a file: This floor, This floor – visible layers only or This floor – devices without blocks. The file is created in the browser from the drawing being edited (even if not yet saved), and from the project page all floors can be put into a single file, placed side by side.

• Format: ASCII DXF, version R12 (AC1009), which a wide range of CAD programs can read (AutoCAD, BricsCAD, LibreCAD, QCAD). Accented letters are encoded in the texts, so the file does not depend on a code page.
• Unit: millimetres, 1 drawing unit = 1 mm; the drawing sits in CAD exactly as it does on screen.
• Content: walls, doors and windows, rooms and their labels, dimensions, devices (as blocks by default), cable routes, conductor marking and circuit labels, staircases, risers and furnishings.
• Layers: separate layers hold the walls, the doors and windows, the rooms, the dimensions, the devices by symbol group (switch, socket-outlet, lighting, distribution board, low-current, sensor, other, energy), the cable routes by system and kind (power, low-current, Symalen; conduit and cable separately), the conductor marking, the device labels and the furnishings. The linetype is a property of the layer: power is continuous, low-current is dash-dot and Symalen is dashed, so in CAD they can be switched on and off and given heavier lineweights layer by layer.

The DXF can be opened in a CAD program (for example LibreCAD or QCAD).

What it cannot do, and what to watch out for

The export is one-way: the program does not read its own DXF back as an editable drawing (loading is done as an underlay). Symbols go into the DXF according to the project's symbol set. The DXF is a copy of the drawing: the sizing and check results are not part of it. The export does not replace the professional responsibility of the electrical designer either.

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