Import a Floor Plan
You can create a floor plan from a single DWG file that is imported into the software. This is the most common method used to create a new floor plan. You can import both building layers and booth layers in the single DWG file. You must identify which layers contain the booths, booth numbers and building but you are not required to split the drawing into two separate files.
The recommended best practice is sending files to the Momentus Exhibitions Team for a file cleaning process. This process involves removing lines that are too small or add no value to the drawing, simplifying objects to ensure they are supported, and deleting unsupported objects.
When importing a DWG file:
- You must draw all booths using the polyline tool. Exhibition Floor Plan ignores objects on the Booth Outlines Layer not drawn as polylines during the Import Booths process.
- You must connect all booth shapes.
- Booths cannot contain arcs or circles. All other booth shapes are valid.
- Booths can overlap but it is not recommended.
- Booths can have any number of sides but you can only combine rectangular booths later. If you need to maintain that feature, make sure all of your booth polylines are perfect rectangles.
- You must have all booths on their own layer, separate from all other parts of the drawing. It is commonly named Booths or Booth Outlines. You can name the layer anything but verify you know which layer contains the booths so it is easy to identify during the Import Assignments process in Exhibition Floor Plan.
- All booths must have a single booth number inside the booth.
- You can have booth numbers on the same layer as the booths or in their own layer.
- You must draw all booth numbers with the single line text tool with the text inside the booth walls. In Exhibition Floor Plan, you can draw them on the same layer as the booths and place them on their own layer, commonly called Booth Numbers.
- Booth numbers must:
- Be text and not Mtext
- Have one number per booth outline
- Have the insertion point completely contained within the booth
- Contain either letters, numbers, periods, underscores, slashes (/), dashes or colons
- Not contain special characters other than those listed above
- You must format the DWG file for AutoCAD 2018 or earlier.
You can also import more booths or more building outlines after the initial import. However, you cannot import the same booth number twice. For building outlines, the best practice is deleting the layer(s) not need any longer, then importing the new layer(s).
When importing a floor plan for the first time, choose the scale you think is correct and only import booths. This way if you chose the wrong scale, you do not have to wait for everything to load to find out it is wrong. For reference, typical scales are feet or inches 1:1 and meters or mm 1:1. If you chose the wrong scale in imperial, then your booths are off by a factor of 12; in metric, they are off by a factor of 1000. In both cases, delete the floor plan and re-import using the scale you didn't try last time.
To import the DWG file:
- Click the Events link from the Main Menu. The Events page opens.
- Select the event for the floor plan.
- Right-click and select Floor Plan -> Add Floor Plan. The Add Floor Plan window opens.
- Enter the following information:
- Description – Name of the floor plan.
- Function – Function for the floor plan. Only functions assigned to the Exhibitor function class are available.
- Expand the Floor Plan Options section.
- Enter the following information:
- Import DWG Drawing – Click the Choose Files button to select the DWG file to import.
- Units – Units used on the floor plan.
- Scale Drawing to Floor Plan – Scaling for the floor plan. 1 = 1 is often used as a starting point. When going into the floor plan for the first time, it is important to check the dimensions and areas of your booths to verify they are exactly as expected.
- Expand the Map Booth Layers section.
- Enter the following information:
- Booth Outline Layer – Layer that contains the booths.
- Booth Text Layer – Layer that contains the booth numbers.
- Expand the Advanced Layer Mapping section to configure additional floor plan layers. To configure more layers:
- Click the Insert Row link. A new row inserts into the grid.
- File Layers – Layers from the .DWG file you want to display in the Exhibitor Floor Plan file.
- Layer Description – Defaults when selecting the layer.
- Overlap – Select Allow.
- Allow Snap – If checked, booth objects can snap to this layer's objects.
- To add additional layers, right-click on the current row and select Insert Row.
- Click OK. The import process begins. Importing may take up to 30 minutes depending on the size of the DWG file. You can minimize the Add Floor Plan screen during the import process and continue working in the software while the import is processing. Once the import is complete, open the newly imported floor plan. To open it, select the event from step 2 from the Events screen, right-click and select Floor Plan -> View Floor Plan.
Export a Floor Plan
- Click the Events link from the Main Menu. The Events page opens.
- Select the event with the floor plan to export.
- Right-click and select Floor Plan -> View Floor Plan. The floor plan opens.
- Select the Home tab.
- Click the File button.
- Select Export.
- Select the file type to export. The file exports with the selected extension and file name from the software and is located in the Downloads folder.
Comments
4 comments
How do you determine the exhibitor document class?
I keep getting this error note: Floor plans cannot be added to the Planning/Booking function. Please select a different function and try again.
0 upvotes
Floor Plans cannot be uploaded to the default function that is created when an event is created (the Planning/Booking Function). Floor Plans can also only be added to Exhibition Class functions.
You must add a new function for your floor plan and then show the Class column in the Function grid and change the Class to "Exhibition" and save. Now select that newly added function when adding your floor plan.
0 upvotes
We have the same problem, although we added a new function as described above.
0 upvotes
Hi Jean,
You should only be getting the error message, "Floor Plans cannot be added to the Planning/Booking function." if you are attempting to add the floor plan to the planning function that is created when saving the Add Event window.
If the new function is not an exhibition class function then you should receive the following message, "Floor plans can only be added to exhibition class functions. Please change the class of this function to exhibition or select a different exhibition class function and try again."
Which error message are you seeing when adding a new floor plan and selecting the new exhibition class function you created?
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