DWG viewer

Richard Sands

I know AutoCad offer there freeeby, but wonder what alternatives there are.
I had a client ask me today if he could view and make comment on my and other dwg's.
Obvious issue I see like any program is keeping abreast of versions so that may dictate what application is better.

Vaidas Guogis

Why not to use Chapoo.com Free service?

Richard Sands

Thanks for suggestion, but the person wants an application that is installed on his computer.
Personally I avoid any of those sites so would also prefer not to go that way.

May just have use the AutoCad freeby.

Jason Bourhill

Richard,

Obvious one to me would be BricsCAD Classic. I understand it is very reasonably priced, is fully featured, and you can use for more than just viewing .

The Open Drawing Alliance list some free viewers on their site https://www.opendesign.com/guestfiles . The teigha viewer is pretty basic.

The Guthrie  website has some viewer options:
http://www.guthcad.com/viewer.htm
http://www.guthcad.com/cadviewer_markup.htm

Of course there are also other free .dwg CAD applications, which I think is why there isn't much call for cad viewer software.

Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

Bruce Fillmore

Anyone can download ACAD's freebie, and it will open BricsCAD drawings (not to overlook the obvious)

JWMC van de Weijgert

[code]PASTE CODE HERE[/code] 

Carnissesingel. Rotterdam(2).dwg

John Gaunt

In my area PDF is the standard method of presenting and commenting on drawings.
Also there can be a number of issues around letting CAD files out of the office.

Joe Dunfee

There is a bit of a story to tell about Autodesk's free viewer.   It was free for many years, and then they started charging for it.  Dassault systems (the makers of SolidWorks ) took advantage of the situation, and made their DWG editor available for free.  So, people were naturally drawn to that.  It was not too long before Autodesk decided to make their drawing viewer free again.  

At some point Autodesk started calling their viewer "True View" - apparently to give the impression that all the other dwg viewers were somehow less true to the drawing standard. And, the even put warning messages on their viewer, any time someone uses it to open a .dwg file created by another source.  There was more than a little irony when they first started doing it, because initially some of the other Autodesk products that could create .dwg files, would also trigger the warning, "Autodesk cannot guarantee the application compatibility or integrity of this file."

Dassault system's DraftSight program is still free, and is fairly capable. There is no LISP or or any way to program the free version.  They have a paid "pro" version, but I have not tried it.

-Joe

Roy Klein Gebbinck

But what is JWMC van de Weijgert's question?