AutoCAD Drawing Viewer

Popular programs in 3D Design

What is AutoCAD Drawing Viewer

While not everyone needs the ability to read AutoCAD’s wireframe drawing objects, those who do will appreciate this program. Highly useful for managing minor edits to .DWG, .DWF or .DXF files on the fly and for preparing reports when the designer or architect isn’t available, this multipurpose viewer for the leading CAD software saves both time and money. The AutoCAD Drawing Viewer does not require the full version of AutoCAD to read drawing objects.

Hypothetically, the AutoCAD Drawing Viewer supports drawing objects for all versions of AutoCAD. However, the usual common sense caveats apply. The full, paid version of AutoCAD doesn’t always correctly read drawing objects from its own earlier versions. Similarly, expect problems viewing .DWG or .DXF files exported from other CAD programs. Here again though, the paid, full version of AutoCAD doesn’t necessarily read files exported from other programs as .DWG correctly, either. That aside, the program works reasonably well.

CAD files often grow to enormous size, so the Explorer View may be the AutoCAD Drawing Viewer’s best feature. Much like the full version, the Viewer uses a common window as a desktop. The file explorer makes navigation between directories easy, as well as changing the language displayed by the user interface. In addition, users can save time by screening smaller versions of the file without opening them. Clicking on a file opens it into the common desktop window.

Assuming that the drawing object can be read, the AutoCAD Drawing Viewer’s next most useful feature lets the user select a different version of AutoCAD and convert the file. That means that users of older versions of AutoCAD can postpone upgrading without losing time or productivity. In addition, proprietary shops will like the ability to export drawing objects as PDF or JPEG files rather than sharing their valuable drawings.

Although layering gives designers a powerful advantage, not all designers follow best practices in either their use of layers or in labeling them. That makes layers awkward for end users and anyone else that needs to edit the final drawings. To meet that need, the AutoCAD Drawing View opens the individual layers and allows basic text editing wherever text is found. Finally, like most modern applications software, AutoCAD stores the attributes for the drawing object in a database. Taking advantage of that, the AutoCAD Drawing Viewer accesses the database. That gives an editor global search and replace capability which saves time and retains a consistent look throughout the project.

On the downside, especially for a design tool, the user interface leaves something to be desired in its own design. A less cluttered desktop would be more intuitive and user friendly. Similarly, for a small program, the AutoCAD Drawing Viewer uses a lot of system resources, particularly for batch jobs. Handling huge drawing objects is not necessarily faster or easier in the full version.

PROS

• Free and distributable
• Handles .DWG, .DWF and .DXF files
• Slim Explorer view
• Conversion to other versions of AutoCAD
• Export to PDF or JPEG to protect intellectual property
• Batch processing
• Access to layers
• Global search and replace

CONS

• Under-designed user interface
• Minimally effective editing capability
• High resource use; however, not necessarily worse than the full program