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Quickly and Freely convert a DWG file to a PNG for Ekahau

DWG to PNG Free and Quick!


One of the problems that we run into many times with Ekahau is the size of the file that has been converted from a DWG file.  While a desktop with some horsepower (CPU, GPU, RAM) can power through it we may notice that during a Survey that there may not be enough power.

What do I mean?  I think most have experienced it but when you start moving around on the map, things lag - it feels that the picture takes for ever to rasterize on the screen.

This is a part of what I believe needs to be done before you get onsite and before you step of your house to start a survey.

LOAD THE ESX file that was used in the design and test the speed on the device you will be surveying with.  If you are noticing acting like Google Chrome (aka resource hog) then you should probably recreate the file unless there is an explicit need to use the original design ESX file.

So now the situation is this - you have the DWG file, you know that if you load it that you are going to have a bad time.

For the love all that is holy, please do not ever think about putting a customer document inside of a online DWG>PNG, JPG conversion.


Now that I got that out of the way, let's get to the juicy bits.


Adobe TrueView is a completely free product to review DWG files and downloadable below.

https://www.autodesk.com/viewers/all-viewers


Once you download and install, open up your DWG file you are wanting to streamline for that butter-soft like surveying experience.


Once you do - click the Plot button.

I feel yellow


Once you open it, it will be intimidating but fear not!  I will help you.

 Printer/plotter and Name: is where the goods are at


You'll then want to scroll towards PublishToWeb PNG



For smaller DWGs - you could get away with just using the stock settings but I'll warn you.  You'll end up having a file that is VERY small where you won't be able to make out room numbers and those other details we love to have while making sure we are doing an accurate survey.

What does this mean?  It means we need to make a custom papersize!

If you look here, you'll see an example of a larger papersize I made.  Adjusting this will allow you to size up or size down your final PNG (Or JPG if you want to follow the same steps for PublishToWeb JPG)




I personally have created a paper size of 6375x8250 and seem to use that just fine.

After you plot, you will save the file then you can view the file with an image viewer or create your map in Ekahau.  One note with DWG files, they will sometimes make things small when you plot - this is where Ekahau's map cropping feature works wonders.  Also, when you plot, you can either go portrait or landscape - I prefer portrait when possible for reports.



One of the last things is - you can save all of this by "Add" and call it your Ekahau PNG Maker so you don't have to adjust the papersizes everytime you want to do this.  The best part of this all is that you can batch plot multiple floors easily if you find that everything on the first floor is spot on.

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