120CHAPTER 6: USING RF PLANNING
Prepare the Floor
Drawings
If your floor drawings are contained in JPEG or GIF files, this step does not apply. Go directly to “Define Site Information” on page 121.
If you plan to import AutoCAD DXF™ or AutoCAD DWG files into 3WXM, you should perform some “clean up” work before importing the files. Doing this work before you import the files into 3WXM creates a more compact file, requiring less storage space. Typically, the more CAD diagram cleanup that is done within the CAD software, the more smoothly the drawing will import into 3WXM.
To clean up the AutoCAD file:
Perform an audit
Turn on, unlock, and unfreeze all layers
Remove unnecessary notations
Purge unused blocks, line types, and layers
Typically, based on the drawing technique chosen when the drawing file was created in AutoCAD or TurboCAD, a single object may be drawn with more than one line; for example, walls. When such an object is imported, it results in more than one object in 3WXM. To avoid the actual object being defined as more than one obstacle, delete parallel lines within a certain distance.
Another method you can use to achieve the same result is to group all the lines into one object. For example, you might group four lines that form an office or conference room to create one attenuation factor for that entire area. Or, group multiple lines that were drawn in the floor plan to create a bigger line.
Grouping lines is not always recommended. For example, grouping lines into one object does not work well with polylines. Grouped polylines are recognized by the planning tool in 3WXM as a single, monolithic obstacle. This causes incorrect results when viewing RF coverage.
Objects must not be RF Obstacles or Groups before Clean Layout is performed.
