From a CAD or PDF floor plan to a 3D browser map, step by step

The trick to a floor plan that stays useful for years is not the drawing, it is the placement. A DWG or a scaled PDF already knows its real size, so all you set is where it sits and which way it faces. Once it lines up with the building on the basemap, every shape you trace on top gets real coordinates for free, every sensor you add later lands in the right room, and every share link shows the plan at the real address. The CAD & PDF import guide covers every dialog option.

A PDF never records the scale it was plotted at, so the dialog matches the page against 17 standard ISO A, ANSI and ARCH sheet sizes and offers ranked guesses such as 1:100. Check the guess against the title block, or type a width you know into Or enter a known width (m). A DWG is drawn in real units; the dialog reads them from the file, shows the building size each unit would give, and lists every layer with its entity count. Dimension, hatch and title-block layers start unticked.

1. 1
   Open the Floor plan tool

   In the facility editor press I (or 8), or pick Add floor plan from the Draw menu, and drop the file into “Drop a floor plan here”. Plans you uploaded before are under From library.

2. 2
   PDF: choose the sheet and the scale

   Pick the page from the thumbnails, check the preselected Drawing scale chip against the title block or enter a known width, and confirm with Use this sheet. Places at shows the real-world size before you commit.

3. 3
   DWG: confirm units and layers

   Check the unit under Drawing units: each chip shows the building size it implies, so a wrong unit is obvious. Untick electrical, plumbing and furniture layers you don’t need, then click Use this drawing.

4. 4
   Drag it onto the map

   For a scaled PDF or a DWG, the side panel reads “Drag on the map to position the sheet”: the size is fixed and only the position follows your drag.

5. 5
   Line it up with the building

   Select the plan, rotate it with the Rotation slider or the [ and ] keys, nudge it with the arrow keys, and lower the Opacity until the outline sits on the building in the basemap.

The PDF import dialog

The result: the plan sits at its true size, turned until it matches the street grid. When the architect sends a revision, Replace image swaps the drawing and keeps that placement, so everything traced on top stays aligned.

The placed plan is a backdrop. The 3D building, and everything data can attach to, is what you draw on it with the tools in the Draw menu. Everything you draw sits on the map, with nothing to measure or type:

• Area (P) for rooms, departments and zones. Give each a name and a role such as Room; names are what room-level data joins on later.
• Aisle (L) for wall runs and walkways, with wall height and thickness in 3D & Altitude.
• Magic walls (W) to raise a closed wall around every area you select, in one click.
• Door (D), Stairs & lifts (S), Rack (G) and Text (T) for openings, vertical transport, shelving and labels.

Height is per shape: set Elevation and Height in the side panel’s 3D & Altitude section. Walls get their storey height, racks their real height, and rooms can stay flat or rise slightly so they read as floor. For a second storey, import its plan the same way and give it its own Elevation so it lands above the first; the viewer’s floor switcher then shows one level at a time, or all floors together.

Because a DWG is drawn in real units and a PDF has a drawing scale, the size is right from the start. What remains is how carefully you line the plan up with the building on the satellite or street basemap. With a crisp building outline to align to, expect the plan to sit within a metre or two; the bigger the site and the blurrier the imagery, the more care it takes (an illustration, not a guarantee). That is plenty for asset markers, room colours and share links.

The 4096 px limit is deliberate: a floor plan is drawn as a single texture, and many laptops can’t display a larger one. PDF and DWG imports are sized for that automatically; export your own images at 4096 px or less.

Start a 7-day free trial (no credit card, up to five facilities), import one floor and trace its main rooms. Pro is $60 a month or $600 a year for up to four facilities; see pricing. An AI tool that proposes draft shapes from a placed plan is in development; our AI floor plan post explains what is coming and how to get the same result by hand today.