Importing a DXF drawing

What FredIQ takes over from the drawing

From a DXF drawing, FredIQ takes only the roof outline and the drains. It ignores the other layers.

• Roof outline: one closed curve (polyline) on one layer. Arcs in the polyline are taken over as arcs.
• Drains: points, circle centres or inserted blocks. Drains can be read from at most 8 layers.
• The scale is taken over from the drawing.
• Openings, superstructures, valleys and edge types are not taken over. You add them in the editor.

A simplified DXF drawing with the outline on a single layer works best. Save a DWG file as DXF in your CAD program.

The import stops and states the reason when the outline layer contains:

• two separate outlines, or an outline with an opening inside. FredIQ does not pick “the larger one”.
• an open outline. The import closes a gap of up to 1 mm between the first and the last point by itself and tells you about it.
• an outline whose edges cross.
• separate lines, arcs or circles instead of a polyline, or curves that FredIQ does not read (splines, hatches).

Where to find the import

The DXF import is in the flat roof editor:

• on an empty roof, in the How would you like to start? card, with the Import DXF option,
• at any time with the Import DXF button in the editor's top bar.

A roof with an uploaded background (PDF or image) does not offer the import. Create a new roof for the DXF drawing, see Several roofs in one project.

1. Drawing

1. Drag the DXF file into the window, or click Choose a file.
2. Click Continue.
3. The page shows a preview of the drawing and what could not be read from it. Nothing has been written to the project yet.

2. Layers

1. For the layer with the roof outline, choose Outline.
2. For the layers with drains, choose Drains.
3. Leave the other layers at Ignore.
4. Drawing unit: if the drawing states it, it is used. If not, choose millimetres, centimetres, metres or inches. FredIQ never guesses the unit. Millimetres and metres differ by a factor of a thousand, and the difference would not be visible in the result.
5. Click Show what would be imported.

The import rejects a drawing in a unit it cannot convert (for example in feet). Change the unit in your CAD program and export the drawing again.

3. Review

• Import result shows the size, the area, the number of drains and the units.
• The What the import would do to the existing roof part lists what would be overwritten and what will disappear.
• The import replaces; it does not merge anything. What is not in the drawing will not be in the roof after the import either: drawn openings, superstructures, valleys and edge types disappear.
• Nothing has been written yet. It is only written with the Import into the roof button. For a roof that already has content, the button is called Replace the roof with the drawing and asks for an additional confirmation.
• After the import, the editor opens. If the import reports warnings, the page lists them and you go to the editor with the Open in editor button.

After the import

• The Steps window in the editor shows that the outline and the scale come from the DXF.
• Add openings, superstructures and edge types, see Perimeter edge types. Then continue as with a drawn roof.
• Results that the roof had before the import need to be calculated again.
• A drawing from FredIQ can be inserted back into the original drawing, see DXF export. If you change the scale after the import, the export no longer fits the original drawing and FredIQ produces a separate drawing in millimetres.