PNG to DWG Converter
Turn an old plan you only have as a scan, a screenshot from a PDF or a hand sketch into lines AutoCAD can select, snap to and measure. The PNG is traced and the paths are written into a DWG.
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 PNG
Add up to 20 images, 95 MB each. A straight, high-contrast scan at 300 DPI gives the cleanest lines; crop away the scanner bed and any title block you will redraw anyway.
- 2
Pick centerlines or outlines
Trace as is set to Centrelines, which draws one line through each pen stroke, the way a plan is drafted. Use Outlines for filled logos or parts whose edges you will cut. Black/white threshold is 55%, Smoothing 40.
- 3
Convert to DWG
Press Convert to DWG (AutoCAD). The file is saved in the AutoCAD 2013 format, which every release from 2013 to today opens.
How do I convert a PNG plan into an AutoCAD DWG?
Upload the PNG, keep Trace as on Centrelines for drafted lines, and press Convert to DWG (AutoCAD). Then open the DWG and scale it to a known dimension with SCALE → Reference.
When converting PNG to DWG saves real drafting time
Renovation work starts from what exists, and what exists is often a paper plan from decades ago, a permit set saved as images or a sketch photographed on site. Redrawing a floor plan from scratch takes hours. A traced DWG puts every wall line where the drawing shows it, so a drafter can snap new work onto it, check room sizes, or use it as a locked background layer while redrawing cleanly.
The same goes for workshop jobs: a hand-drawn bracket outline or the silhouette of an old part can be traced and handed to a fabricator. If the person who asked for it uses a laser or plasma table rather than AutoCAD, PNG to DXF is the better format.
Centerline or outline tracing for PNG to DWG
Centrelines
One polyline along the middle of each stroke.
- Matches how plans and sketches are drafted
- Half as many entities as outlines
- Lines can be offset or given a line weight later
Outlines
A closed boundary around every dark area.
- Keeps the thickness of strokes
- Closed shapes work with HATCH and AREA
- Doubles every thin line
Scan resolution and how accurate the traced lines are
- one pixel at 300 DPI
- 0.085 mm
- one pixel at 200 DPI
- 0.127 mm
- one pixel at 100 DPI
- 0.254 mm
- 300 DPI pixel on a 1:100 plan, in real life
- 8.5 mm
A pixel is the finest detail a trace can resolve, so the scan resolution sets the precision ceiling. On a 1:100 plan scanned at 300 DPI, one pixel stands for about 8.5 mm of building, which is fine for an underlay and too coarse to replace a measured survey. Paper also stretches and scanners skew slightly, so expect long dimensions to drift slightly after scaling. Confirm critical dimensions on site.
Smoothing at 40 keeps corners crisp, which suits orthogonal plans. Raise it for organic sketches. If dust and paper texture appear as tiny fragments, lower the Black/white threshold a few points and convert again.
PNG
Portable Network Graphics
PNG is a lossless raster format published in 1996 by the PNG Development Group and later standardised by the W3C and ISO. It keeps every pixel exactly, supports full alpha transparency and handles text, sharp edges and flat colours without artefacts. That precision makes it ideal for screenshots, logos, icons and interface graphics. The trade-off is size: photographs saved as PNG are often several times larger than the same photo as JPEG or WebP. All browsers, operating systems and editors open PNG files.
- Compression
- Lossless
- Transparency
- Yes
- Animation
- No
- Introduced
- 1996 · PNG Development 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
PNG to DWG brings a plan, sketch or outline that only exists as an image into AutoCAD as traced polylines, so a drafter can scale it, snap to it and draw over it instead of starting from a blank sheet.
Cleaning up a traced DWG in AutoCAD
- Scale to one known dimension with SCALE → Reference
- Rotate the plan square with ROTATE → Reference if the scan was skewed
- Move all traced geometry to its own layer and lock it
- Delete leftover specks and scanner marks with a crossing window
- Remove overlapping segments with OVERKILL
- Join broken wall lines into polylines with JOIN
PNG to DWG questions
Is a traced PNG the same as a redrawn CAD plan?
No. A trace gives you every stroke of the image as geometry, including wobbles, gaps and stray marks, but no layers, blocks, dimensions or text objects. It is a fast underlay to trace over or to clean up, not a finished drawing.
How do I make a traced plan the right scale?
Find a dimension written on the plan, such as a 4,000 mm wall. In AutoCAD, run SCALE, pick a base point, choose Reference, click both ends of that wall and type 4000. Everything else in the drawing scales with it.
Why do my walls come out as two parallel lines?
That is outline tracing: it follows both edges of every thick stroke. Switch Trace as to Centrelines, which places one line down the middle, or keep the double lines if you want wall thickness drawn.
Can text on the scanned plan become editable AutoCAD text?
Not through tracing; letters become small shapes. For room names and notes, retype them as text in AutoCAD, or run the scan through OCR first to copy the words.
What scan resolution should I use for PNG to DWG?
300 DPI for most plans. Lower resolutions merge thin lines that run close together, and higher ones mainly trace paper grain. For a large-format sheet that will not fit a desktop scanner, how to scan documents to PDF covers phone and copier options.