Documentation

From installing to writing a mapping profile. What each feature solves is on the features page.

If you are here because QGIS will not open your DWG, start with why, and three ways around it.

1. Installing

Free edition — in QGIS open Plugins → Manage and Install Plugins, search for EchoCad and install it. It is in the official QGIS plugin repository, so updates arrive through the Plugin Manager as well.

On a machine with no internet, download echocad-<version>.zip from the releases on a machine that has one, carry it over, and use Plugins → Manage and Install Plugins → Install from ZIP.

Pro — after you buy, the purchase page shows your licence key and a Download EchoCad Pro (ZIP) button. Install the ZIP with Plugins → Manage and Install Plugins → Install from ZIP, then open Plugins → EchoCad Pro → Licence…, paste the key and press Activate. Updates then arrive through the Plugin Manager. Lost the key? Get it again on the key page with your order number and the email you used. Pro has a different plugin id, so it does not collide with the free edition and updates never overwrite each other.

QGIS 3.34 LTR or newer is required. We have checked 3.44 and 4.x as well.

The interface follows your QGIS language. Ten are included: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese and Chinese (Simplified). Anything not translated shows in English rather than as a blank.

2. Which files each edition opens

The free edition reads DXF. There is nothing to install and nothing to configure — no converter is fetched, so it behaves the same on a machine with no internet.

Pro reads DWG as well, R14 through 2018 and later, with the converter already inside it. Nothing to download, no path to set, and it works on an isolated network. The bundled build is LibreDWG dwg2dxf 0.14.8578; corresponding source is pointed to in bin/SOURCE.md inside the plugin (it is GPL-3).

If you have a DWG and the free edition, save it as DXF from the CAD you already use and open that. That is two steps; Pro removes them.

R13 and older get a second chance in Pro. Stock LibreDWG decodes such a drawing and then throws the whole thing away, so every tool built on it reports failure. Pro ships a patched converter that keeps what was decoded. Both R12 drawings in our sample set open this way, with layer names, blocks and text intact. Old files vary, though — when recovery fails the message says so, and you can save the drawing as DWG 2018 from the CAD you use (on Windows the free Autodesk DWG TrueView converts it too). The free edition reads DXF only, so this does not apply there.

3. Menus

After installing, entries appear under the Plugins menu. The free edition is EchoCad and Pro is EchoCad Pro, so you can tell at a glance which one you are using.

Import drawing…: The main window for importing one drawing. See section 4.
Show in 3D… (Pro only): Turn a drawing's 3D solids and take a flat drawing from the angle you choose.
Align to map… (Pro only): Opens by itself after an import, with the drawing brought into the map view you were looking at. By hand: drag the drawing to move it, a corner to resize it, the round handle to turn it, or type the numbers. By two points: click a corner of the drawing, then the same place on the map, twice — clicks snap to corners and lines, Esc steps back one point. Dragging an empty spot pans the map in both.
Licence… (Pro only): Paste the key you received when buying and Activate. The state and expiry are shown.
What Pro adds… (free edition only): What Pro would add, with a link to it.

Pro also registers with Processing.

4. The import window

The EchoCad Pro import window: drawing, coordinate system, skip hidden layers, layer names and advanced options. — The Pro import window with the advanced options open. The free edition shows the Pro rows locked.

Drawing to import — choose the DWG file.
Coordinate system — filled in from the project when the window opens. You are usually adding to data that already exists, so the same system is the right one. Change it freely; if the project has no coordinate system you have to set one before the import will run.
Layers — tick to skip layers that are switched off or frozen in the drawing.
Layer names (Pro) — As in the drawing, or rules you saved. Edit… opens a window where you put CAD layers under new names. See section 5.
Advanced options (Pro) — polygon tolerance in mm, keep elevations (Z), and put text inside a shape into that shape's label attribute.

Imported layers are temporary until you save or export them from QGIS. After the import a report shows what came in and what did not, with the reason for each.

Block attributes are extracted automatically in Pro. There is no switch for it in this window. To turn it off, use the Extract block attributes into fields option of the Processing algorithm.

5. Layer name rules (Pro)

Edit… lists the drawing's CAD layers. Make a new name, put layers under it, untick the ones you do not want, and save the rules under a name. They then appear in the Layer names list for the next drawing. Rules are stored as a JSON file in the shape below; Open a rules file… in the same list loads one a colleague shared, and the Processing algorithms take the same file.

{
  "version": 1,
  "name": "example",
  "description": "match is a glob pattern. The first rule that matches wins.",
  "rules": [
    { "match": "A-WALL-*", "layer_name": "building_wall", "geometry": "polygon" },
    { "match": "*-TEXT",   "layer_name": "annotation",    "geometry": "point"   }
  ],
  "default": { "layer_name": "{cad_layer}", "geometry": "auto" }
}

match: A glob pattern over the CAD layer name: A-WALL-*, W-SUPPLY-???, *-EXST. Case is ignored.
layer_name: The output QGIS layer name. Rules that share a name merge into one layer. {cad_layer} is replaced by the original CAD layer name.
geometry: auto, point, line or polygon. auto splits by whatever geometry types the drawing holds.
default: Applied to layers no rule matched. Those layers are also listed as unmatched in the result, so nothing disappears quietly.

Rule order is priority. Matching stops at the first hit, so put narrow patterns first. It is a single JSON file, so a team can share it and keep it in git.

6. When something goes wrong

Questions about using EchoCad, free or Pro: ask on GitHub Discussions, where the answer helps the next person too. Licence keys, billing, or a problem you can only show with your own drawings: Pro support (private).

A failed import tells you which kind of failure it was.

Message	Meaning
Unsupported drawing format	R13 or older, and recovery did not succeed on this one
Conversion timed out	The drawing is very large, or damaged
There is nothing to draw	It converted but holds no entities. Possibly a metadata-only drawing
Conversion stopped part way	The converter halted mid-write. Check the converter version

7. Known limits

Hatch patterns are rebuilt from the definitions the drawing carries. Patterns made of parallel line families (angle, spacing, dashes) come out as they are. Patterns built from dots or filled shapes cannot be expressed as lines and fall back to a solid fill — we do not invent one.
External references (XREF) whose target file is missing are skipped. The import still finishes, and the missing file names are listed in the result.
Features with broken coordinates are dropped. Some drawings carry a few entities at absurd coordinates (10¹⁴ and beyond) that would otherwise render the whole drawing as an empty page. The number dropped is reported.
Line weight is applied only where the drawing specifies it. Many drawings leave it at "default".

8. Common questions

Can I install the free edition and Pro together?: Yes. They have different plugin ids, so they do not collide, and the menu names differ.
Are my drawings uploaded anywhere?: No. Conversion happens entirely on your machine.
Can I use it on a site with no internet?: Yes, with no time limit. Nothing ever contacts a server — the licence key carries a signature the plugin verifies on its own. Activation on an isolated network takes as long as pasting the key.
Does it stop if I do not renew?: It does not. See renewing for the detail.
What about DXF?: QGIS can add a DXF, but usually not as the drawing: one layer per geometry type, text at the wrong size, dashed lines turned solid, hatches gone. The free edition reads DXF and keeps that structure — see the free edition. DWG is opened directly by EchoCad Pro.

See the features Price