Plotting¶

ezdwg can render DWG entities using matplotlib. Install the plotting extra:

pip install "ezdwg[plot]"

Basic Usage¶

From a Document¶

import ezdwg

doc = ezdwg.read("drawing.dwg")
doc.plot()

From a Layout¶

msp = doc.modelspace()
msp.plot()

From a File Path¶

import ezdwg

ezdwg.plot("drawing.dwg")

Parameters¶

The plot() function accepts the following parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`types`	`str \\| None`	`None`	Entity type filter (e.g. `"LINE ARC"`)
`ax`	`matplotlib.axes.Axes \\| None`	`None`	Existing axes to draw on
`show`	`bool`	`True`	Call `plt.show()` after drawing
`equal`	`bool`	`True`	Use equal aspect ratio
`title`	`str \\| None`	`None`	Plot title
`line_width`	`float`	`1.0`	Line width for geometry
`arc_segments`	`int`	`64`	Segments for arc approximation
`auto_fit`	`bool`	`True`	Auto-fit view to content
`fit_margin`	`float`	`0.04`	Margin around content (fraction)
`dimension_color`	`Any \\| None`	`"black"`	Color for dimension entities

Saving to a File¶

Set show=False and use matplotlib to save:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import ezdwg

doc = ezdwg.read("drawing.dwg")
ax = doc.plot(show=False)
plt.savefig("output.png", dpi=150, bbox_inches="tight")

Plotting Specific Types¶

# Only lines and arcs
doc.plot(types="LINE ARC")

# Only text entities
doc.plot(types="TEXT MTEXT")

Custom Axes¶

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig, (ax1, ax2) = plt.subplots(1, 2, figsize=(16, 8))

doc = ezdwg.read("drawing.dwg")
doc.plot(types="LINE", ax=ax1, show=False, title="Lines")
doc.plot(types="ARC CIRCLE", ax=ax2, show=False, title="Arcs & Circles")

plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Color Handling¶

ezdwg resolves entity colors from:

True color (24-bit RGB) — if present on the entity
ACI color index — AutoCAD Color Index (1–255)
Layer color — inherited from the entity's layer

Colors are applied automatically when plotting. ACI index 7 (white/black) is rendered as black for visibility on matplotlib's default light background.