AutoStyle Pro

Presentation Rendering for AutoCAD Sheets

AutoStyle Pro turns a finished AutoCAD layout into a presentation drawing. An AutoCAD plugin exports the sheet with its geometry, layers, colors, lineweights, linetypes, hatch names, blocks and draw order. AutoStyle Studio renders it with fills, textures, plan symbols, shadows and hand-drawn media, then exports a PNG, JPEG or PDF at plot resolution. Built for civil engineers and landscape architects who need a colored site plan, planting plan or exhibit without redrawing anything.

The sample planting plan rendered in the Marker look, full sheet — A finished sheet: the sample planting plan in the Marker look.

The short version

In AutoCAD, open the layout you would plot and run Export to Studio. In Studio, pick a Look, tag a few areas with a Material, and export. The drawing keeps its CAD geometry the whole time. Nothing is traced, redrawn, or flattened to an image.

Key Capabilities

CAD Export

Exports the current layout, including paper space and everything visible through each viewport
Rotated and scaled viewports export in place
Layer color, lineweight, transparency and linetype come across
AutoCAD draw order is preserved
Choose which layers to include, and adjust color and transparency before exporting
Xref layers grouped separately in the export dialog

Render Looks

Seven looks: CAD Line, Ink Sketch, Marker, Colored Pencil, Watercolor, Illustrative, Realistic
One click restyles the whole sheet: lines, fills, symbols, shadows, lettering and paper
Your colors, textures and linetypes are kept; only the treatment changes
Look Settings tunes lines, sun angle, shadow length, depth shading, paper and grain
Style Gallery renders every look to one sheet for picking

CAD Awareness

Recognizes standard hatch pattern names and tags the surface with a material
Recognizes acad linetype names and office conventions, and sets the matching stroke style
Recognizes block names and swaps them for library plan symbols
Mapping Rules teaches Studio your office's own naming
Rules files can be exported and shared as an office standard

Styling

Fill color, opacity, and linear or radial gradients
50+ fill textures in seven categories, with scale, rotation and opacity
Stroke color, thickness in inches or millimeters, opacity and style
Stacked stroke layers, so one path can carry several strokes
Drop shadows with offset, blur, color and opacity
Style at the layer, or override a single object

Civil & Site Linetypes

Civil: centerline, property line, easement, existing contour, flow line, retaining wall, limits of disturbance, right-of-way
Utilities: lettered water, sanitary sewer, storm drain, gas and electric lines
Site: fence, silt fence, tree protection, railroad, zigzag, double
All draw at real CAD line weights, not screen-thickness effects

Plan Symbol Library

Trees and landscaping, site furniture, utilities, parking and ADA, vehicles, people, north arrows
Trees and planting drawn in the look's own family (sketch, marker, watercolor or flat)
Raster images inserted, scaled, rotated and faded
Import your own SVG or image assets into the library

Annotation

In-place text editing on the canvas, at the drawing's zoom and rotation
Leaders with four arrowhead styles and draggable endpoints
Halo outline or mask box behind text so labels read over any fill
Hand-lettering fonts ship with the app and travel with the look
Warns when a document uses a font this machine does not have

Reuse

Layer Style Database remembers how a layer name was styled and offers it on the next import
Style presets, saved globally or with the project
Paint Style copies a finished style onto other layers or objects
Layer style sidecars keep display colors with the drawing in AutoCAD

Output

PNG, JPEG or PDF at 72, 150, 300 or 600 DPI
Page size comes from the layout's plot paper size, so the export matches the sheet
Style Gallery contact sheet of every look
Paper space captured as a background image for title blocks and borders

Two Halves of One Product

The AutoCAD plugin is an optional install that adds an AutoStyle Pro panel to the shared BDL ribbon tab. It exports a layout to a .asp project, applies presentation colors inside AutoCAD, and plots the layout to PDF in one click.
AutoStyle Studio is the desktop application where the sheet is styled and rendered. It opens .asp projects, needs no AutoCAD, and runs happily on a machine that has never had CAD installed.

The .asp project is a self-contained file. Re-exporting the same layout onto an existing .asp updates the geometry, so a drawing revision does not cost the styling work already done.

Why Not Just Render in CAD

The usual path to a colored plan is to plot the sheet to PDF or an image, open it in a drawing application, and paint over the top. That copy is dead the moment the drawing changes: every revision means re-plotting and re-painting, and the presentation drawing drifts away from the sheet it came from.

The same drawing rendered in the CAD Line look and the Watercolor look, side by side — One drawing, two looks: CAD Line and Watercolor.

AutoStyle Pro keeps the drawing as geometry. Layers stay layers, lines stay lines, blocks stay recognizable. Styling is attached to layer names and object handles, so a re-export of a revised sheet lands in the same styled document. The hand-drawn look is applied at render time to real CAD linework, which is why it still reads correctly at plot resolution instead of dissolving into a screen-sized effect.

Typical Workflow

Finish the sheet in AutoCAD the way you would plot it, with the right layout, viewport scale and layer states
Run Export to Studio from the layout tab and choose which layers to include
Open the .asp in Studio (it opens automatically if you double-click the file)
Accept the remembered layer styles and CAD auto-mapping prompts
Tag the remaining surfaces with materials such as turf, concrete, water or planting bed
Pick a Look from the VIEW tab and adjust it in Look Settings
Add symbols, labels, a north arrow and scale bar
Export a PNG, JPEG or PDF at the resolution you need

Who It Is For

Civil engineers and landscape architects producing site plans, planting plans, grading and utility exhibits, concept plans, and public-meeting graphics from drawings that already exist in AutoCAD.

System Requirements

Studio	Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. No .NET runtime install required; the application is self-contained.
AutoCAD plugin	AutoCAD or Civil 3D 2025 or newer. Optional: Studio opens `.asp` files without it.
License	Annual or 3-year license, with a free trial. See Licensing & Updates.