From floor plan to indoor map: PDF, DWG or image, to scale and in 3D

Whatever you start from, the import ends the same way: one floor-plan picture per level, placed at real size on the real map. That picture is the backdrop. The indoor map is what goes on top of it — rooms, walls, doors, racks, stairs and lifts as named shapes that data can attach to.

So the file type only changes how the scale is found and what you choose on the way in. The table below sets the three side by side; Import a PDF or DWG floor plan has every dialog step.

A PDF never records the scale it was plotted at, so Spatial Map asks before it places anything. Pick the sheet from the page thumbnails; each shows the paper size it recognised (17 sizes across ISO A, ANSI and ARCH). The Drawing scale chips are ranked guesses such as 1:100 or 1/8" = 1'-0" — check the one you pick against the title block — or type the width the whole sheet covers on the ground.

Places at shows the real-world width and height before you confirm, so a wrong scale is caught before it reaches the map. With Not to scale, the sheet takes the size of the box you drag. PDFs of up to 256 MB and 2,000 pages are accepted.

Spatial Map reads DWG files saved as AutoCAD R2004 to R2018 itself; you don’t need AutoCAD. Confirm the drawing units — each unit chip shows how big the building would be in it — and choose the layers. Annotation, dimension and title-block layers start switched off, which leaves a cleaner plan. A DWG always lands at true size, because it is drawn in real-world units.

The drawing is rendered as black linework on white and placed as a picture. Walls and rooms are not pulled out of the linework, and text is not drawn, so room names are added as labels or as the names of the areas you draw. DXF is not read directly: save it as a DWG or plot the sheet to PDF.

Search for the address, drag the plan onto the building, lower its opacity and rotate it with the slider or the [ and ] keys until the outline sits on the building. Every level is imported the same way and given its own Elevation, so the floors stack in 3D at their real heights. The order of the Floor plans list decides which floor the viewer opens on.

When the drawing is revised, import the new sheet and use Replace image on the old plan: position and size stay, so everything drawn on top stays aligned. See the Floor plan tool.

Once a plan is placed and aligned, AI Map can draft walls, doors, racks, labels, areas, stairs, lifts and escalators from it, on the whole floor or one part. You review the drafts on the map and add the ones you want. What it misses you draw with the editor’s tools: Area, Aisle, Magic walls, Door, Rack and Stairs & lifts.

Walls, rooms and racks have heights, so the result is a floor plan to 3D map from the first shape you add — see the 3D indoor map for what it can hold.

A map earns its keep when data lands on it. Tables hold your rows — stock, devices, sensors, bookings — fed by CSV or Excel uploads, REST polling or the write API. Data links match rows to shapes by name or code, and style rules colour them, so name racks, rooms and doors the way your systems already do.