Autodesk Labs have announced “Project Freewheel”:
Beyond the Paper: DWF Freedom and Independence
Today is the 4th of July - the day Americans celebrate their independence. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. Here we are 230 years later, and you don't have to be an American to celebrate this day. Autodesk customers worldwide can celebrate the unveiling of the Project Freewheel Technology Preview….
Freewheel is a web based service to allow DWF viewing with a selection of web browsers & operating systems and no local viewer install. It operates in two modes:
- Anyone can visit the http://dwfit.com website and enter a DWF URL, only those already shared on public websites, which will then be displayed in the viewer provided.
- You can use the web service to display a DWF in an HTML page, like this blog, without requiring readers to download/install a viewer .
To quote the Freewheel site:
“The service works by down-loading the DWF you specify (by URL) from the source web server to an Autodesk server which renders the content and delivers the result to a user's web browser. The Autodesk server may analyze, process, report on, and cache the DWF data provided to it. 3D, password protected, and DRM (measure-disabled and print-disabled) DWF files are not currently supported.”
This DWF, posted in April 2004 as a DWF Writer demo, is displayed below using Freewheel. It’s a very old file (created in 1983 using AutoSketch 2.1) being displayed with some very new technology 
For the current restrictions/limitations or more information regarding the Freewheel visit:http://dwfit.com/
