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If you're currently managing office moves and tracking computer equipment and furniture by making manual changes on a printed copy of a floor plan created in a computer-aided drafting (CAD) program, you have another option.

If you have an electronic copy of the CAD floor plan drawing, you can insert it into Visio Professional, convert the spaces into Visio shapes, and then use the Visio Space Plan solution to track people and other assets electronically.

Converting a CAD floor plan drawing involves four steps:

• Prepare the CAD floor plan for conversion
• Insert the CAD floor plan into Visio
• Convert spaces in the CAD floor plan into Visio shapes
• Set up the Visio shapes to work with the space plan solution

Prepare the CAD floor plan for conversion

To make sure that you'll be able to use the converted CAD floor plan drawing as a Visio Professional Space Plan diagram, you must take a few steps to prepare it before you insert it into Visio.

To prepare the CAD floor plan drawing

1. Open the floor plan drawing in the CAD program where it was originally created.
2. Outline each space (office, cubicle, and other room) with a polyline, and then assign the polylines to a separate layer.

   Note  If spaces are not outlined with polylines, you won't be able to convert them into Visio shapes.

3. Before you save the CAD drawing, make sure the whole drawing is visible by zooming to the drawing's extents.

   Tip  It's also a good idea to remove all unused blocks, layers, linetypes, and other objects from the CAD drawing.

Insert the CAD floor plan into Visio

After you prepare the CAD drawing, you are ready to insert it into Visio Professional and situate it appropriately on the drawing page.

To insert a CAD floor plan into Visio

1. In Visio Professional, on the File menu, point to New, point to Building Plan, and then click Space Plan.
2. In the Space Plan Startup Wizard, click CAD drawing. Locate the CAD drawing that you want to insert, and then click Open.
3. In the CAD Drawing Properties dialog box, on the General tab, clear both the Lock position and Lock cropping check boxes.
4. Compare the drawing units under Custom Scale with the CAD drawing units. If the units in B (see illustration below) don't match the units in A, change the units in B to match the ones in A, and then click OK.

   

5. In the CAD Drawing dialog box, click OK.

To enlarge, position, and lock the CAD floor plan

1. To make the CAD floor plan drawing that you inserted into Visio Professional as large as possible, drag a green selection handle at one of the drawing's corners until the drawing content extends almost to the edges of the drawing page.

   

   Tip  If you need more space to drag the selection handle, in the Zoom box on the Standard toolbar, type 25% (or another relatively low percentage), and then press ENTER.

2. Right-click the CAD drawing, point to CAD Drawing Object, and then click Properties.
3. In the CAD Drawing Properties dialog box, on the General tab, under Custom Scale, change the number with lots of decimals to a simpler number by rounding it up to the nearest five. For example, if 1 inch on the drawing equals 516.0337944941 inches in the real world, round 516.0337944941 inches up to 520 inches.

   Click OK.

4. In the CAD drawing dialog box, click Change page scale to match CAD drawing scale, and then click OK.

   The drawing may shift and the page may zoom out. To zoom in, on the Standard toolbar, on the Zoom list, click Page. Drag the CAD drawing until it fits on the drawing page again.

5. To lock the CAD drawing, right-click it, point to CAD Drawing Object, and then click Properties.
6. In the CAD Drawing Properties dialog box, on the General tab, select both the Lock position and Lock cropping check boxes, and then click OK.
7. Save the Visio diagram that contains the inserted CAD floor plan.

Convert the spaces in the CAD floor plan into Visio shapes

After you insert a CAD drawing into Visio Professional, you're ready to convert the spaces (offices, cubicles, and other rooms) of the drawing into Visio shapes so you can work with them using Visio tools.

To convert CAD drawing spaces into Visio shapes

1. Open the Visio Professional diagram that contains the inserted CAD floor plan.
2. Right-click the CAD drawing, point to CAD Drawing Object, and then click Convert.
3. In the Convert Wizard, under Layer name, select the name of the layer to which you assigned the polylines in the original CAD drawing, and then click Finish.

   If you don't see a polyline layer, it means that you didn't prepare the CAD drawing properly before you inserted it into Visio. To successfully convert the CAD drawing into a Visio space plan diagram, you (or the drawing's creator) must open the original CAD drawing in a CAD program, outline the offices, cubicles, and other rooms in the drawing with polylines, and then assign the polylines to their own layer.

4. To lock the rest of the CAD drawing (other than the spaces representing offices, cubicles, and other rooms) so that you don't inadvertently select it, on the View menu, click Layer Properties. In the row for the CAD Drawing layer, click in the column under Lock, and then click OK.
5. To format the spaces that you converted to Visio shapes, on the Edit menu, click Select All. On the Formatting toolbar, click Fill Color, and then click the white square. Click Line Color, and then click the black square.
6. To protect the shapes that represent spaces from being resized, on the Format menu, click Protection. Click the Width, Height, X position, and Y position check boxes, and then click OK.
7. Click the drawing page to cancel the selection of the shapes that represent spaces. If you don't see separate spaces outlined on the floor plan, click the plan to select it. On the Shape menu, point to Order, and then click Send to Back.
8. Save the Visio diagram.

Set up the Visio shapes to work with the space plan solution

Before you can take advantage of the people- and asset-tracking capabilities that are part of the Visio Professional Space Plan solution, you must convert the shapes that represent spaces into special Space shapes that work with the space plan solution.

To convert the shapes representing spaces into special Space shapes

1. Open the Visio Professional diagram where you converted the spaces in the CAD floor plan into Visio shapes.
2. To select all the shapes that represent spaces, on the Edit menu, click Select All.
3. On the Plan menu, click Assign Category.
4. In the Assign Category dialog box, under Category, click Space, and then click OK.
   

   If you have a large number of spaces in your floor plan, this step can take a fairly long time.

5. The area of each Space shape appears below the shape. To hide the areas, on the Plan menu, click Set Display Options. Click the Spaces tab. Clear the Show area check box, and then click OK.
6. To make the text size associated with the shapes smaller so room numbers and other information fit within the offices and cubicles, in the Font size box on the Formatting toolbar, type 5 pt, and then press ENTER.
7. To add a room number to a Space shape, select the shape that you want to add the number to, and then, on the View menu, click Custom Properties Window. In the Name and Space ID fields, type the room number.

   

   Information that you type in the Name field appears on the shape. By typing the room number in the Space ID field, you make it possible to associate people and other assets with each Space shape.

8. Repeat Step 7 for each Space shape in the diagram, and then save the diagram.