Sweet Home 3D Forum Category:Help Forum:Developers Thread: [Plugin] Electrical Symbols — annotate sockets, switches, lighting & more on the 2D plan + DXF Export 1.1
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Hi everyone, I'd like to share a new plugin and a small update to my existing DXF Export plugin. Electrical Symbols Plugin Electrical Symbols lets you annotate the 2D plan with electrical symbols commonly used in architectural drawings — power outlets, switches, low‑voltage outlets, lighting fixtures, and fire/security devices. Symbols only appear on the 2D plan; they don't show up in the 3D view (so they don't clutter your renderings). Features
32 built‑in symbols in 5 categories:
Power outlets — 110V single/double, 220V, waterproof, floor, USB Switches — single/double/triple, 3‑way, dimmer, motion sensor Low voltage — RJ45, RJ11, TV, HDMI, speaker, intercom Lighting — ceiling, pendant, downlight, spot, wall, fluorescent, LED strip, exit Fire & security — smoke/heat detector, fire alarm, sprinkler, camera, motion sensor, doorbell, magnetic contact
Sized in centimeters, configurable from 10–200 cm. Default 40 cm (looks right at 1:50–1:100 scale). Per‑home defaults — your size preference is saved inside the .sh3d file. Standard editing — symbols are stored as SH3D Labels, so move/rotate/copy/paste/undo all work as expected. SVG export with all symbols included (independent menu item; not the built‑in SVG export, see "Limitations" below).
Three new menu items under Plan
Insert Electrical Symbol… — opens a tabbed picker with size slider Electrical Symbol Settings… — change default size, batch‑resize selected symbols with live preview Export Plan to SVG (with electrical symbols)… — standalone SVG export
Limitations (please read) Symbols do not appear in the built‑in Plan → Export to SVG or in Print / Print to PDF. SH3D's built‑in plan rendering goes directly through internal PlanComponent code that plugins can't hook into safely. If you need the symbols in your output, please use:
Plan → Export Plan to SVG (with electrical symbols)… — provided by this plugin Plan → Export to DXF… — provided by the DXF Export plugin (see version 1.1 below)
DXF Export — updated to 1.1 The previous DXF Export plugin has been updated to version 1.1. The only change is that it now recognizes electrical symbols (placed by the Electrical Symbols plugin) and writes them as actual geometry — circles, arcs, lines, polylines, text — into a new layer called ELEC_SYMBOLS. This is a fully optional feature. If you don't use electrical symbols, DXF Export 1.0 still works perfectly, and the only reason to upgrade is to get electrical symbol support. The 1.1 version is also a strict superset: existing files behave exactly the same as before. How the two plugins talk The two plugins are completely independent — they don't share any code. The Electrical Symbols plugin embeds the symbol's geometry into the SH3D Label as a small text property. DXF Export reads that property string and converts it to DXF entities. This means:
You can install either plugin alone — neither breaks the other Updating one doesn't require updating the other A .sh3d file containing symbols can be opened on a machine without the Electrical Symbols plugin (the symbols just won't render in 2D, but the data is preserved)
Which DXF version do I want? SituationUseI never use electrical symbolsDXF Export 1.0 is fineI want symbols in my DXF outputInstall Electrical Symbols + DXF Export 1.1I have Electrical Symbols installed but use the old DXF 1.0Symbols will appear as plain rectangles in DXF — upgrade to 1.1 to get proper geometry
[Attach the .sh3p files / link to your repo here] Installation Double‑click the .sh3p file, or use File → Preferences → Plug‑ins → Import, then restart SH3D. If you previously installed an earlier build of Electrical Symbols, please remove the old version first:
Windows: %APPDATA%\eTeks\Sweet Home 3D\plugins\ macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/eTeks/Sweet Home 3D/plugins/ Linux: ~/.eteks/sweethome3d/plugins/
License GPL, same as Sweet Home 3D itself. Feedback welcome This is my first plugin release for the symbol set, so symbol shapes follow Taiwan/IEC building drawing conventions. If your region uses different conventions (e.g. NEMA in the US, BS in the UK) let me know — adding regional variants is straightforward since each symbol's geometry is defined in a single small file. Bug reports, feature requests, and pull requests are welcome. Thanks!
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Re: [Plugin] Electrical Symbols — annotate sockets, switches, lighting & more on the 2D plan + DXF Export 1.1
Thanks a lot for the pointer — I hadn't seen Dorin's script or the AREI library before. That's a clever approach, very different from mine: using the furniture catalog system to carry 2D symbols, versus my approach of using Labels with property metadata.
I'll definitely test the AREI library with my DXF Export plugin and report back. Since 2D furniture pieces follow a different code path than Labels in SH3D, my plugin won't pick them up automatically — but the built-in DXF furniture export should already write their plan icons. I'm curious whether it produces clean vector output or just a rasterized image.
If it turns out the furniture-based approach works well for users who need a wider symbol set (Belgian AREI, etc.), I'm happy to mention Dorin's library in my plugin's README so people know about both options.
Thanks again — and great work on the Dodecagon library!
