How to Bring a Civil Site Plan Into AutoCAD at the Right Scale

You get a site plan from your civil engineer, open it in AutoCAD, and it is full of things you will never use. There are invert elevations, parking counts, notes, setbacks and drain details. You only need the site context and a few utilities around your building.

Cleaning that drawing by hand wastes time. Pasting it normally also gives you a tiny, exploded mess in the wrong direction. In this article I share the workflow I use in my office to grab only what I need from a civil plan and bring it into my architectural floor plan at the right scale and rotation.

How to clean a civil site plan before you copy anything

Civil drawings carry a lot of information that your architectural plans already get from the civil set. I do not redraw or delete anything in the consultant’s file. I just hide what I do not need so I can see what is left.

To find out what an object is, I select it and check its layer in the Layer Properties or the Properties palette. Then I freeze that layer. In my case I froze things like:

• Invert information (pipe elevation notes)
• Parking space counts and cars
• Drain details
• Underground communication lines
• Setbacks
• Most of the civil notes, because I add my own notes later for the items I need

I kept the items that matter for my project: sidewalks, light poles, and the main utilities. Those are sewer, gas, water and electrical. If a utility is missing, like electrical conduits in my case, I can ask the engineer for it. I also kept the storm water lines because they affect my building.

How to copy only the site items around your building

Once the plan looks cleaner, I do not copy everything. I only copy the site information around my building.

1. Select the site items around the building.
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+C. This is copy with base point (it asks you for a base point first).
3. Pick a corner of your building as the base point.
4. Switch to your floor plan drawing.

Picking a corner of the building matters. You will use the same corner again when you rotate the site plan.

How to paste a drawing as a block in AutoCAD

In your floor plan, use Ctrl+Shift+V instead of the normal Ctrl+V. A normal paste brings in exploded geometry. I do not want that. Ctrl+Shift+V brings everything in as one block, so I can control it.

If you simply click to place it, you will see the block is very small. There are two reasons:

• Units: civil plans are usually in feet, and architectural plans are usually in inches.
• Orientation: the civil plan uses a different north direction than your floor plan. That is why we rotate it later.

How to scale a pasted block from feet to inches

You could scale the block by hand after pasting. There is a faster way. At the moment AutoCAD asks you to place the block, do not click. Type a scale factor instead.

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+V.
2. Type X and press Enter. AutoCAD does not show this option in the command line, but it works.
3. Type 12 and press Enter. The factor is 12 because there are 12 inches in 1 foot.
4. Type Y and press Enter.
5. Type 12 and press Enter again.
6. Click to place the block.

Now your civil context comes in at the correct size. If your civil plan is already in the same units as your drawing, you do not need this step.

How to rotate the site plan to match your building

Next I rotate the site plan so it lines up with my building. I use the regular ROTATE command with the Reference option.

1. Start ROTATE and select the block.
2. Click the same building corner as the base point.
3. Type R and press Enter to choose Reference. Typing the letter is quicker than clicking the option.
4. For the reference angle, click the corner, then click a second point along the same wall.
5. For the new angle, click along that wall on your actual building.

The site context now sits correctly around your building.

How to trim everything outside your area

You can keep the site plan as a block if you like. I prefer to use EXPLODE so I can edit everything. After that, I trim what I do not need, and I do it with a boundary.

1. Draw a rectangle around the area you want to keep.
2. Start EXTRIM, an Express Tools command that trims everything outside a boundary.
3. Select the rectangle, then click outside of it.

It is not perfect. In my example, a block was not trimmed and a hatch needed a quick fix. You can adjust those by hand. It still removes most of the extra geometry in one step.

How to merge layers and simplify the site plan

The last step is the layer cleanup. For my project I do not need separate layers for curbs, sidewalks, pavement marks and parking stripes. I either show them all or hide them all. For example, I hide them on my ceiling plan.

1. Create one new layer, for example a curb or sidewalk layer.
2. Start the LAYMRG command (Layer Merge, from Express Tools).
3. Select objects on the layers you want to merge, such as the curb and the parking stripes, then press Enter.
4. Choose your new layer as the target layer and confirm with Yes.

I also set that layer to color 8, because it prints lightly under my plot styles. After that, I can freeze one layer on any sheet that does not need that information. Adjust the layers to match your own office standards.

Quick recap

• Freeze the civil layers you do not need. Check each object’s layer first.
• Copy only the site items around your building with Ctrl+Shift+C and a corner as base point.
• Paste with Ctrl+Shift+V so it comes in as a block.
• At the paste prompt, type X, then 12, then Y, then 12 to convert feet to inches.
• Use ROTATE with the Reference option to line it up with your building.
• Explode the block, then use EXTRIM to remove what is outside your boundary.
• Use LAYMRG to put curbs, sidewalks and markings on one light layer.

Watch the full livestream

I show every step live in this video: Stop Importing Plans the Hard Way in AutoCAD. If it saved you some time, subscribe to Lazy Arquitecto on YouTube, and join me live every Sunday at 11 AM for a new LazyTask, where I answer your AutoCAD questions in real time.