DXF Snapping Tutorial

In This Topic

DXF snap items are fixed background (greyed out) 'grids' that can be optionally snapped to. Typically they would contain a full AutoCAD drawing of a house, for example, with a kitchen and its walls sketched in but to scale.

In normal use, DXF snap items are greyed out and form a background that can be snapped to, so that the scaled wall drawing can be used to place a new wall layout. They are not movable (by design) and not to be confused with Model Items that can host a DXF and be moved around and snapped to also. Model Items are part of the drawing whereas DXF Snapping grids are not.

During the initial setup of a 'DXF Snapping' grid, you can easily move and scale the dxf, but once setup it does not move around while you draw the walls over it.

This tutorial will describe how to import a DXF, scale and position it and use it as a snap target. We will use a sample dxf file, of an L shaped wall, which you can get here: LWALLSAMPLE.dxf. (Just click the link to download the .zip file. Then go to your Downloads folder and Extract into this folder - see step 3).

Import DXF

First open the Plan View Options [F9] using keyboard shortcut or by double clicking on your plan.
On the View Properties page, click on the Snap to DXF ... button to open the Snap Item properties.

Click to view Snap Item properties
Click on the Browse ... button and use the file dialog to select the applicable dxf;
- in this example the LWALLSAMPLE.dxf located in the Downloads folder.
In this particular example, we will need to rescale the Wall DXF to 100 and set the X,Y coordinates as shown.
- We can also reposition to centre on page by dragging the model or manually setting the position using the X Y edit boxes.
  
  The image shows Position of X and Y on the grid of the placed dxf (added for descriptive purpose only).
- Once the model is at the correct position and scale, click on the OK button to confirm the DXF loading and close the dialog.

Now you can use the DXF to snap by dragging another item, e.g cabinet, until it snaps to one of the handles.

House Plan Example

You have the ability to import a DXF as a background. This enables you to use this as a template and draw in walls in the correct position or the correct size and overlaying cabinets in the actual DXF plan drawings.

Here we have (1) imported a houseplan.dxf (2) have drawn in a wall and then (3) added a cabinet.

Dxf Houseplan 1

In this example, the walls in CabMaster have been changed to Purple to make them stand out a little more and a Cabinet has also been placed in the corner.

The individual DXF Layers can be turned off/on as required when drawing. The Cabinets are also transparent to make seeing the original DXF plan easier through the cabinets to ensure correct alignment etc.

The image shows the wall added to the DXF and then we have added a cabinet inside that wall (#2 shown below right).

Dxf Houseplan 2

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