Your existing drawings
Start from the DWGs you already have.
Nothing has to be redrawn to begin. engiCAD opens DWG and DXF directly, and you decide per file whether it arrives as editable geometry you can trim, extend and rebuild, or sits underneath as a coordination underlay to draw services onto.
Coming in
Two ways to bring a drawing in.
Open DWG and DXF
Straight from the file, with no round trip through another program and no export request to the architect before you can start.
Editable or underlay
Choose per file. Native geometry gets the full modify toolset; an underlay stays a read-only background, and can be made editable later.
Layers under control
Visibility, colour override and lineweights across both native and imported layers, in one manager.
Find anything
Text search across underlays, so a room name or a level marker buried in an architect's drawing is findable.
Import filtering
Filter by entity type at import and reconcile drawing units, rather than accepting whatever the file contains.
Underlay transforms
Move, rotate, scale and mirror an underlay into position when it did not arrive on your coordinates.
Working on it
The tools you already use.
- Modify toolset — trim, extend, fillet, chamfer, offset, array, scale, rotate, explode, join and break.
- Object snaps — endpoint, midpoint, centre, quadrant, intersection, perpendicular, tangent and nearest, including snapping to underlay geometry.
- Ortho and polar tracking — with tracking lines and snap indicators, honouring canvas rotation.
- Coordinate entry — AutoCAD-style absolute, relative and polar input on a command line, with the shortcuts in your fingers already.
- Grips — zoom-scaled hit tolerance, hover cursors and click-click polyline editing, including converting a segment to an arc.
- Annotation — native dimensions, leaders and multileaders, MTEXT with inline formatting, hatching and revision clouds.
Staying coordinated
When the architect reissues.
Reload in place
Refresh an underlay from its source with position and layer settings preserved, instead of setting it up again.
Underlay manager
Every reference in the project listed, with visibility, properties and removal in one place.
Hidden and frozen
Restore underlays you have hidden, and carry hidden or frozen state through to export.
Level underlay
Ghost one level's geometry over another, anchored by reference points, to coordinate between floors.
Going back out
Export that survives the round trip.
DXF and DWG export
Full drawing export including native dimensions, text, leaders, paths and spaces.
Batch by view state
Export a set of drawings per view state in one pass, with optional DWG conversion.
Paper space
Sheets exported as DXF paper-space layouts with viewports and title blocks.
Bound underlays
Bind references into a single self-contained file when a drawing has to travel on its own.
Related
Where to look next.
See it on your own project.
engiCAD is in active development and we are onboarding a small number of practices. Tell us what you work on and we will arrange a walkthrough against a drawing you recognise.