Does Canvas support AutoCAD?

Yes! Order the 2D Floor Plan package which includes a 2D AutoCAD file (.dwg).


The 2D .dwg floor plan file allows for full manipulation of the file in terms of editing the drawing or changing annotations. This file comes with pre-annotated dimensions for convenience, but you may turn these off or add different ones if desired from inside AutoCAD.

Although Canvas's 3D packages include .dwg files, these are 3D models and are not optimized for use with AutoCAD. They do not contain 2D drawings whether it be floor plans, elevations, ceiling plans, or other types of 2D documents. AutoCAD LT is unable to work with these files.

Units and Scale

Our AutoCAD files are delivered in inches by default. If you are importing your Canvas files into AutoCAD and intend to use any other unit besides inches (even if they are within the same system of measurement, e.g. feet), you will need to rescale the units based on their relative ratio to inches. Changing the unit type in AutoCAD alone will simply change the label, not the numbers. 

As an example, if you import with inches (default), 10 units is 10 inches. If you change the units in AutoCAD to architectural, or metric, 10 units is now 10 feet or 10 meters and the scale is way off.

The instructions below will guide you through rescaling units in AutoCAD from inches to different metric units using the SCALE command (you can find other methods for changing units in AutoCAD in this AutoDesk support article):

  1. In the command line, enter and select “SCALE"
  2. When asked to select objects, type “all”
  3. When prompted for basepoint (on cursor), enter “0”, then “,” then “0” to set the basepoint to 0,0
  4. Next, specify the scale using the conversion listed below and in the linked AutoDesk article:
    • Inches to Millimeters = 25.4
    • Millimeters to Inches = 0.0393701
    • Inches to Centimeters = 2.54
    • Centimeters to Inches = 0.393701
    • Feet to Millimeters = 304.8
    • Millimeters to Feet = 0.00328084
    • Feet to Centimeters = 30.48
    • Centimeters to Feet = 0.0328084


*Reminder: You can choose imperial or metric in your account settings before placing an order.