Exporting structural JSON

toJson() exports LibreDWG's native structural representation of a DWG as a validated JSON artifact.

Required command: LibreDWG dwgread with JSON output support. See External tools.

Export JSON

use Mattmy\DwgConverter\Facades\Dwg;

$json = Dwg::toJson($request->file('drawing'))->convert();

$path = $json->storeAs('drawing-data', 'floor-plan.json', 's3');

The result has extension json and MIME type application/json. The package checks the file and its size, then validates the JSON without changing it. It does not require specific fields or a particular root type.

Schema boundary

The JSON keeps LibreDWG's original structure. You can inspect it with tools such as jq or process it in your application, but field names may change between LibreDWG releases. If you want to save selected fields in a database, define your own data structure and version it instead of relying directly on upstream field names.

It is not GeoJSON and does not have usingDxfVersion(): dwgread preserves the source DWG version and has no --as option.

Nesting depth

Validation uses PHP's native nesting limit (depth = 512). JSON that is nested too deeply fails with json_invalid, even if its syntax is otherwise correct. The package does not offer a setting to raise this limit. See JSON validation failures to distinguish a depth error from a syntax error.

Size and memory

Structural JSON can be much larger than its DWG source. The default dedicated limit is 64 MiB, combined with the general output limit by using the smaller active value. Prefer storeAs() because output() loads the entire JSON into PHP memory.

storeAs() avoids loading the file again for delivery; validation during convert() still reads and decodes the entire JSON. Allow more PHP memory than the file size alone, even when using storeAs().