Topic: AutoCAD DWG Viewer

[adrian]

Does anyone know of a good dwg viewer to allow say an engineer to view where a drawing is up to and then perhaps print it if required.
An inexpensive one would help and a free one would be ideal.  
I know of Express Viewer, but it only does dwf files.  I have seen Volo View for a few releases, so I am not sure if it is worth the dollars they would want us to pay.
Any advice??

Thanks  

[TR]

dwf composer is only $99 a seat.

[craigr]

Look into Bentley viewer. I believe it is a FREE one.

craig

[Craig]

Adrian, Check out
http://www.infograph.com/products/dwgviewer/

Look at the third one down and it's free. I haven't used it but it's worth looking in to.

Free AutoCAD Viewer
View DWG, DXF, DWF & CSF files.
The Free DWG Viewer is based on our easy-to-use Brava Desktop software.
Supports: AutoCAD (R12-2005), DWF v6, CSF

[PDJ]

We use Voloviewer here and it works great.  I couldn't even begin to count how many seats we have.  I've heard evil rumors that AuroDesk is going to drop it soon in favor of the .dwf viewer.  Tim Riley suggested paying for composer but, why bother with that when you can get a free .dwg writer and they can then view them with Internet Explorer.  That's the whole purpose behind this .dwf craze..

Funny thing, at least in 2K4, did you know you can't open a .dwf with AutoCad?? At least I haven't seen a way.

I had thought about getting one of my techs a copy of AutoCad LT the other day, until I saw the latest price.. WOW!!

[adrian]

Thanks everyone.  The Bently viewer is free and has a lot of excellent tools, although the plotting is a pretty ordinary.  I too have heard that Voloview is being made extinct.  I was going to try the dwf composer, except that the trial version doesnt allow you to open dwg files.  I will eventually get a CD version from the sales rep that might do the job.  
As for the Free DWG Viewer, well yeah it is free, but you need to upgrade to print drawings and do a few other things.  
So my search continues.

[TR]

Funny thing, at least in 2K4, did you know you can't open a .dwf with AutoCad?? At least I haven't seen a way.

There's no need to open them in AutoCAD that's why they have dwf viewer (which ships with 2005).

[pmvliet]

With all that though, we are still having to create DWF's as well as DWG's. That is jsut another step in the process for a Drafter to have to complete when a file is done. Granted you can batch plot to DWF. But maybe it would be nice to have a rector in the save command that would also do a saveas to a DWF. Then you still have 2 files for each file and that becomes a nightmare in itself...
The saga continues.

Pieter

[craigr]

Why would one want to print to a .DWF?

As stated before, it is an extra step to create, then try to keep updated with every rev of the dwg. - Then there is the file storage issue, (as mentioned above).

We have switched from Voloview Express to the Bently viewer for those that need to look at our dwgs, not edit.

craigr

[M-dub]

I'm going to suggest Docupoint Discovery.  It automatically creates the dwf's for you and also serves as a powerful search utility.  It searches through the strings of text in each drawing and allows you to view and print using the Autodesk DWF Viewer.  You can specify where you want to keep the dwf files as well as when to recreate them.  (We have it updating the dwf's after the dwg is saved).
HTH...