Adding an AutoCAD Drawing

This video details how to add and georeference an AutoCAD (or MicroStation) drawing file for an engineering project.

There are multiple ways of adding an AutoCAD drawing file, as described below.

Starting a New Project

If just starting out a project, the AutoCAD drawing file can be directly loaded through the File menu. Go to File > Open and then select the AutoCAD drawing file to open.

Note that this method cannot be used for a project that already contains other data. For these situations, follow the steps detailed in the following section.

Ongoing Project

For new or existing projects, follow these steps to load an AutoCAD drawing file:

1. Right-click on the Map Data Layer panel and then select Add Layers from the displayed context menu.
   
2. The Add Layers dialog box will be displayed.
   
3. Select the AutoCAD drawing file to load.
4. The selected AutoCAD drawing file will be loaded into the Map View and Map Data Layers panel.
   
5. If the imported AutoCAD drawing file does not have an assigned coordinate reference system (CRS), refer to this article in our Knowledge Base on how to georeference an AutoCAD drawing file.

Drag and Drop

AutoCAD drawing files can also be dragged and dropped from Windows Explorer onto the Map View or Map Data Layers panel. Dropping AutoCAD drawing files onto the Map Data Layers panel provides more control on the display order of the drawing files.