CAD2Shape

CAD2Shape is a program with a pretty self-explanatory name - it allows you to convert AutoCAD documents (DXF and DWG) to the ESRI shapefile format (SHP, supported by apps like ArcView, ArcGIS and ArcMap), as well as to Surfer Blanking (BLN) and XYZ.

The interface of the tool is based on a standard layout where you can use the file browser to locate and select items for processing. Unfortunately, working with multiple items at the same time is not possible.

You can check out the name, date of modification, type and size for each file in the list. If you prefer the default settings, then all you have to do is specify the output destination and filename, in order to proceed with the conversion procedure.

Otherwise, you can select the type of objects to convert, from points, polylines and polygons to MultiPatch, labels and 3D.

Experienced users can configure additional entity settings (e.g. circle, circle center points, eliminate identical point) and select common entity attributes to convert (e.g. ID, LAYER, COLOR, LINEWEIGHT), as well as filter settings (layers, pens, region).

From the 'Settings' area you can make CAD2Shape close Polylines and output UCS coordinates, apply an offset for the coordinates, as well as select the units, base and direction for the rotation, and others.

The program requires a very low amount of CPU and system memory, has a good response time and quickly finishes a task without freezing, crashing or displaying error dialogs. We have not come across any issues in our tests. There's also a help file available.