Import and export

Written By Clayton Combe

Last updated 4 months ago

Scenario is part of your larger workflow, which means you need to be able to bring information in and out of it. Our goal is to ensure that everything you import can be handled properly, and everything we export is the highest possible quality.

Export & import projects

Scenario projects contain diagrams, crew lists, and information about themselves. You may want to export a project to:

  • Send it to a colleague

  • Create a record of a certain version

  • Back it up for safety

Exporting or importing a project effectively creates a new copy. A project will not be shared or connected to anything unless that’s set up in the Scenario account.

Scenario exports in .sce format, which is specific to Scenario files.

To export a project:

  1. Select the project in Scenario

  2. Click the Share button in the upper right corner

  3. Click the Export Project button

  4. Choose where to save the .sce file

To import projects:

  1. Click the import button next to Projects

  2. Choose up to 10 .sce files from the file picker

  3. Confirm import; the new projects will appear in your list

To protect privacy, you can choose whether or not to export crew details with your project. When importing, you can only import crew details for projects you have exported.

Image options

Scenario handles different image file types in different ways, based on what they allow. We try to do as much as possible with vector images (mathematically-defined paths) because they’re resolution-independent; they look sharp at any scale, and take up much less file space. Sometimes, using raster images (made of pixels) is necessary, but they take up more disk space, and cannot be scaled without losing quality.

  • PDF - these can contain vector, raster, or a combination of both

  • SVG - a vector-only format (the one that all Scenario items are created in)

  • PNG - a raster format that allows transparency

  • JPEG - raster format with no transparency

We highly recommend using vector formats whenever possible. This helps all your images stay sharp at any scale, print well, and sync to the cloud more quickly.

Import images to a diagram

Adding images to a diagram means you don’t have to build everything from scratch. It’s common to have existing floor plans, maps, and reference images.

  • Images can be imported from PDF, SVG, PNG, or JPEG files

  • There is a 5mb file size limit on image formats, and 10mb on PDF and SVG

Import custom items

Custom items (which behave like fixtures and allow you to upload your own images) accept SVG, PNG, and JPEG images.

  • We recommend SVG for vector performance, faster sync, and changeable colors

  • See Custom Items for more info

Export from a diagram

You can export two types of image from a diagram:

Export as PNG

  • Raster image

  • We’ll attempt to render this at “actual size,” but for much larger diagrams, we down-res as needed

Export as PDF

PDF export is available to Starter and Pro users. See Scenario account for more info.

  • Maintains the source formats of each item, so vectors stay vector and rasters stay raster

  • This means any raster images that are included may need to be down-rezzed to fit on larger diagrams (which is why we highly recommend using vector sources as much as possible)