Documentation
From installing to writing a mapping profile. What each feature solves is on the features page.
1. Installing
Free edition — download echocad-<version>.zip from
the releases and use
Plugins → Manage and Install Plugins → Install from ZIP.
Listing in the official QGIS plugin repository is in progress; once it is done you will be able
to find EchoCad in the Plugin Manager directly.
Pro — download echocad_pro-<version>.zip
and install it the same way, then enter your key under
Plugins → EchoCad → Licence. It 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. The converter
Pro users can skip this section — the converter is included.
In the free edition, Plugins → EchoCad → Converter setup…
has a Set up automatically button that downloads and installs it for you.
It is kept under your QGIS profile, so updating the plugin does not make you fetch it again.
On a machine with no internet, set the path by hand as below.
The converter is LibreDWG’s dwg2dxf; it is GPL-3, so the free edition
cannot ship it — your own machine fetches it.
Set the path under Plugins → EchoCad → Converter setup…. It is remembered once you set it.
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.
Pro also registers with Processing.
4. The import window
- 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.
- Save to GeoPackage — unchecked, the layers are temporary and vanish when you close the project. Check it and set a path for drawings you will keep using.
- Mapping profile (optional) — Open… for an existing file, Create example… for a new one (Pro). See section 5.
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. Writing a mapping profile (Pro)
You do not have to start from scratch. Create example… writes a file in the shape below, and you edit it in any text editor.
{
"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" }
}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
A failed import tells you which kind of failure it was.
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Unsupported drawing format | R13 or older. Only R14 and newer can be read |
| 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".