JPG to DWG Converter
Old floor plans, hand sketches and site drawings often survive only as scans or phone photos. This page traces the lines in a JPG into polylines and saves them as an AutoCAD DWG you can scale, snap to and draw over.
CAD Converter
or drop DWG, DXF, DWF … files here ·
Max 95 MB per file· Up to 20 files· Deleted after 30 minutes
Files are processed on our servers and deleted after 30 minutes.
Model space is the full drawing. All layouts exports each paper-space sheet as its own page, as set up in AutoCAD.
Fit to page scales the drawing to fill the sheet. Actual size keeps drawing units 1:1 (1 mm in the drawing = 1 mm on paper) and may span a larger page.
Same as source uses the size set in each layout. A1 and A0 are the usual plotter sheets for architectural drawings.
Auto turns the page to match the drawing's longer side.
Monochrome prints every line black, like plotting with a monochrome.ctb style — best for printed plans on white paper.
White suits printing. Black looks like the AutoCAD drawing area; transparent works for placing the drawing in other documents (not available in JPG).
300 DPI is print quality; 150 is enough for screens. At A1 and 600 DPI an image is 14,000 px wide, so higher values make very large files.
Only used when the input is a photo or scan (JPG, PNG). Outline draws the edges of shapes, good for logos and laser cutting; centreline draws single lines through strokes, good for scanned line drawings and plotters.
Pixels darker than this become lines. Raise it if faint lines are missing, lower it if background noise turns into shapes.
Higher values give fewer, smoother curves; lower values follow the pixels more closely but create more points.
How to use this tool
- 1
Upload the scanned JPG
Add up to 20 scans, 95 MB each. Crop away the scanner bed and any notes in the margin you do not want traced.
- 2
Check the trace settings
This page traces Centrelines, so each drawn line becomes one path, with a Black/white threshold of 55% to catch faded ink. Choose Outlines for filled shapes such as poché walls or logos.
- 3
Convert to DWG
Press Convert to DWG. Files are saved in the AutoCAD 2018 format; pick an older AutoCAD version if your copy of AutoCAD predates 2018.
A traced scan is a starting point for an AutoCAD drawing, not a finished one: you get the lines in the right places, then you give them a scale, a layer and the precision a plan needs.
From a scanned plan to an AutoCAD drawing
DWG has been AutoCAD's native format since 1982 and stores precise entities: a wall line knows its start and end point to many decimal places. A JPG of the same plan only knows which pixels are dark. Tracing bridges the two by following each dark line and writing it as a polyline, so the result has the shape of the drawing but none of its intent. Doors are arcs made of short segments, dimension text is a cluster of small shapes and the scale is whatever the pixel grid was.
What you gain is a drawing you can snap to, measure roughly and draw over in AutoCAD, instead of tracing by eye on top of an attached image. For a renovation survey or a permit drawing, that saves hours of setting out. When the source is a clean PNG export rather than a photo, PNG to DWG gives crisper lines from the same process.
Scan resolution for JPG to DWG
| Size | Pixels | cm | in | DPI | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Letter | 2550 × 3300 | 21.6 × 27.9 | 8.5 × 11 | 300 | Office scanner, residential sketches |
| A4 | 2480 × 3508 | 21 × 29.7 | 8.27 × 11.69 | 300 | Office scanner, details and sketches |
| A3 | 3508 × 4961 | 29.7 × 42 | 11.69 × 16.54 | 300 | Reduced plan sets, scan in one pass if possible |
| Tabloid | 3300 × 5100 | 27.9 × 43.2 | 11 × 17 | 300 | US half-size sets |
| ARCH D | 7200 × 10800 | 61 × 91.4 | 24 × 36 | 300 | Full US architectural sheet, wide-format scanner |
JPG
JPEG image
JPEG (or JPG) is the most widely used photo format, standardised by the Joint Photographic Experts Group in 1992. It uses lossy compression that discards fine detail the eye is unlikely to notice, which keeps photos small enough for the web, email and phone storage. It handles smooth gradients and natural scenes well, but sharp text, line art and flat colours pick up visible blocky or fuzzy artefacts. JPEG has no transparency and no animation, and every re-save loses a little more quality. Every browser, phone, camera and image editor can open it.
- Compression
- Lossy
- Transparency
- No
- Animation
- No
- Introduced
- 1992 · Joint Photographic Experts Group
DWG
AutoCAD Drawing
DWG is the native file format of Autodesk AutoCAD, used since 1982. It stores 2D and 3D design data, including geometry, layers, dimensions, blocks and metadata, and is the standard for architecture, engineering and construction drawings. The format is proprietary and changes between AutoCAD versions, so older software may not open newer files. Viewing requires AutoCAD, a free viewer such as DWG TrueView, or a compatible CAD program.
- Compression
- –
- Transparency
- –
- Animation
- –
- Introduced
- 1982 · Autodesk
People convert JPG to DWG when an old plan or sketch exists only as a scan and the work ahead, a renovation, an extension or a permit drawing, has to happen in AutoCAD.
300 DPI is enough for ink drawings; go to 400 or 600 DPI when lines are thin pencil or the plan is crowded with small text. Save the scan at the highest JPG quality your scanner offers, or as PNG if it allows, because compression noise along thin lines turns into short stray segments. Blueprints with white lines on a blue ground need inverting in an image editor first, since dark pixels are what gets traced.
Clean up the traced DWG in AutoCAD
- Move the traced geometry to its own layer and lock it, so new work never mixes with it.
- Set drawing units with UNITS, then use SCALE with the Reference option on a dimension you trust.
- Rotate with the Reference option so the main walls are truly horizontal.
- Run OVERKILL to remove overlapping duplicates and JOIN to merge broken segments.
- Redraw walls, openings and grid lines on new layers with exact lengths, using the trace as a guide.
- Plot a test sheet with DWG to PDF and compare it against the paper original.
JPG to DWG questions
Can AutoCAD open a JPG directly without converting it?
It can attach one as a raster image reference with the ATTACH command. The picture shows in the drawing but is not geometry: you cannot snap to its lines, and the JPG has to travel with the DWG or the reference breaks. Tracing gives you lines that live inside the DWG.
Will the traced floor plan give me accurate wall lengths?
Roughly, once you scale it. Accuracy depends on the scan: paper prints stretch with humidity and age, and phone photos add perspective. Check two dimensions at right angles after scaling; if they disagree, use the trace only as a guide for redrawing.
Why does every wall come out as two parallel lines?
That is what a wall drawn with two lines on paper looks like, and Centrelines follows each drawn line. If you get four lines per wall instead, the trace is set to Outlines, which draws around both edges of every line. Switch back to centrelines for line drawings.
Which DWG version should I pick for AutoCAD LT or an older AutoCAD?
AutoCAD LT reads the same DWG versions as full AutoCAD of the same year. A 2018-format file opens in AutoCAD and LT 2018 or newer; for a 2015 seat choose AutoCAD 2013, and for 2010 to 2012 choose AutoCAD 2010.
Is JPG to DWG any different from JPG to DXF?
The tracing is identical; only the container differs. DWG suits AutoCAD users who will keep working on the plan, while JPG to DXF suits laser cutters, CAM software and programs that cannot read DWG.
- Image to DWG ConverterTurn a logo, sketch, stamp or sign photo into AutoCAD DWG polylines. Traces PNG, JPG, BMP, TIFF, GIF and WebP; saves DWG 2013 so older AutoCAD seats open it.
- PNG to DWG ConverterTrace a PNG floor plan, sketch or part outline into AutoCAD DWG polylines with centerline or outline tracing, saved for AutoCAD 2013 and newer. 20 per batch.
- JPG to DXF ConverterTrace a JPG sketch, scan or logo into DXF outlines for laser cutting, CNC and CAD. Release 12 by default, adjustable threshold and smoothing, 20 files at once.
- SVG to DWG ConverterConvert SVG logos, icons and outlines to AutoCAD DWG with paths as polylines and splines, at actual size, saved for AutoCAD 2018 back to Release 12.
- DWG to PDF ConverterConvert AutoCAD DWG to PDF online without AutoCAD. Export every layout as a page at its true scale, keep line weights or print monochrome. 20 files at once.