Autocad DWF Composer
I am hearing good things from my ACAD clients about DWF Composer software. Does (or will) BricsCad have a compatible product? Is anyone currently using DWF Composer with BricsCad and is it working OK?
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The few in my field who send them, should not be encouraged. No one I know likes receiving them, but something which could decipher the .dwg back out of them would be handy.
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There do seem to be a couple of 3rd party utilities about. Google for dwf2dwg or dwftodwg
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To John:I had a very brief look at such a converter and I believe it to be worthless. DWF is nothing more than a clever graphical representation of the original DWG, and converted back results in a empty MODELSPACE. There is a "something" in LAYOUT1 that looks like the original DWF. This "something" can be exploded, but nothing remains of value. No layers, no coordinate system, no entities in it's original state are retrieveable.http://anydwg.com/dwf-to-dwg-src.htmlI dont believe any other converter can do much better, since I believe the conversion purposefully one-way.To Jeffrey:BricsCAD can export to DWF (somewhat older version 6.0). I see no reason why BricsCAD would develop a compatible product. Unless ofcourse there would be huge demand for such a product (unlikely) and AutoDesk crippled their DWF Composer on purpose so that is in compatible with BricsCAD (no personal experiences). You can download a free trial from AutoDesk and pricing is not that outrages (I think you'd profit from the fact that AutoDesk still wants to promote DWF format).Gerrit
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I had 1 or 2 which I believe Turbocad converted - when you're desparate lines and circles on layer 0 are a good start! Subsequent DWF's failed and gave a msg something like "later version of composer". I have wondered whether a later version of Tcad could do it, but have not had the need for a while. Perhaps (already limited) popularity is waning, if I can't convert them they are just a damn nuiscance to me & everyone else I know.
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Type "dwg to pdf" in your search engine and try out this conversion program. Pdf files can be viewed in Adobe Acrobat (which is free) and is more universally popular for viewing drawing exchange
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Thanks for your feedback. I'm interested in a drawing format that I can send to others that is somewhere between a pdf and a dwg. From what I understand the dwf format allows the recipient to view, scale, redline and return the drawing (which they can't do electronically with a pdf) without making permanent changes (which they could do with a dwg) to the original. Is anyone successfully converting Bricscad dwg's to dwf's using the DWF Composer?
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One of the best pdf generators I've found is PDFcreator http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/Free and installs as a printer, also able to convert/print to various other formats but not dwf.I really don't understand the need for dwf in normal use as many apps are able to read/edit dxf. Maybe those who can't should buy a copy of BricsCad or even Qcad (for dxf) if they can't afford that
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DXF's are no good for sending off to print and getting the result you wanted. Also no good for "redlining" though I believe that's a minor use... perhaps the only good use for DWF. From memory you can't plot DWF's at different sizes, nor vary the print quality? People who don't run CAD generally won't want to spend even a few $hundred just to print your drawings.
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Jeffrey, I used a copy of Voloview 3 (of which DWF Composer is a continuation) some years ago to create DWF's. Main aim: to embed the DWF's in a Power Point presentation. We could zoom and ratate and do all such things within the presentation. Cool, but ultimately a waste of time. Then I had another use for Voloview 3, since it came with a standalone version of the print engine of AutoCAD 2004. That was usefull for reviewing and printing drawings created in AutoCad. In those days the print engine of IntelliCad wasn't that good...But I don't have it installed anymore. So for me it turned out to be not that usefull. Once more: you can try the trial version to see if it would suit your needs. (Let us know
)I do use PDF and PDFcreator is a good point to start. But the PDF creators based on the Ghostscript Engine (like PDFcreator) have their limitations and I have better experiences with JAWS PDF Creator (http://www.jawspdf.com/). Although not free, still significantly cheaper that the Adobe product. Gerrit0