AutoCAD

Autodesk DWG TrueView™ - view DWG files for free

Robin Capper

Robin Capper

— 2 min read

Autodesk have released a free viewer for AutoCAD DWG format files. Yes, you can finally the use the words “Autodesk”, “DWG”, “Viewer” and “Free” all in one sentence without the word “wish”

Shaan, Between The Lines ~ AutoCAD Blog, has a post with all the details but the summary is:

  • It’s built on the AutoCAD RealDWG™ engine
  • Offers AutoCAD style viewing, zoom, layer dialog etc
  • It has the ADT object enabler built-in (Yeah from an ADT user!) and is compatible with other AutoCAD enablers.
  • It opens, prints (plotters/Printers) and publishes (to DWF) like AutoCAD 2006
    • It supports AutoCAD style support pathing, plotters, plotstyles etc
  • It’s free

The downside is it’s about 100mb to download but hey, that’s what broadband is for!

Between the Lines: New and Free DWG TrueView™ - view DWG files
DWG TrueView™ is now available for free from Autodesk.
http://www.autodesk.com/dwgtrueview

A common question is now Autodesk offers a free DWG Viewer why bother with DWF?

In another post at BTL Mr DWF Evangelist*, Scott Sheppard, details the role DWF plays and the advantages of sharing DWF files instead of AutoCAD drawings.

Between the Lines: The advantages of sharing DWF files instead of native AutoCAD drawings
“Comparisons between DWG and DWF aside, with DWF, users can do more than just view the design data….”

There is a need for DWG Viewing and a role for DWF as a compact, secure view/mark-up net friendly format. It’s nice that both are now supported and both are free.

* Scott’s Official Title is “Autodesk DWF Technical Evangelist”

Update 30 October, 2005:

I originally referred to Scott as “Mr DWF”. In a discussion group post Scott states that the real Mr DWF is Brian Mathews: “Brian invented the DWF format and designed/built our original WHIP! Netscape
Navigator plug-in.”

So Scott is now Mr DWF Evangelist

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