Beyond the Paper

The Question Remains - DWF back to DWG ?

This subject has been the substance of many discussions, internally and externally to Autodesk.

How can one convert DWF files back to the DWG file format?

The answer remains the same: There are some third party applications that are available for the task, however, the "reverse" conversion will not provide the sought after complete data.

DWF continues to be like an electronic printout, like a hard copy on paper. But guess what - it's better than paper. You can mark it up and you can measure it, even see object property information - once supplied by the drawing originator.

Still it has a lot in common with paper in that it's really not made for conversion to DWG. But more so and even more important, DWF is a very different file format , being 32bit integer coordinates. DWG itself uses double point precision floating point coordinates…making a complete conversion very difficult if not impossible to date.

And again, even if a conversion is achieved , the resultant DWG file would not contain the same data as the original file used when publishing to DWF.

We offer many options for our users today, including the reading of the DWF back into AutoCAD as an underlay so you can add information to a DWG based on what you see in the DWF, but you are not really converting the DWF to DWG.

In situations where you are part of an engineering team and need to collaborate with the original data, you really should request a DWG from whomever gave you the DWF.

--Volker

Sprint to market

Product Marketing Manager, Gabrielle Friedly, reports on use of DWF in the manufacturing industry.

Download DesignRevmanufacturing.pdf (3003.3K)

The round-trip of a DWF file to any Autodesk® design application, overlaying digital markups onto the original computer-aided design (CAD) files, allows the design review process to sprint along.

AU 2006 Summary: What Can DWF Do for You?

Our (Brian Mathews and I) Autodesk University class was entitled "What Can DWF Do For You?" Here is a summary.

Comparison of DWF files to Plot files

• You can print the same DWF file on any printer since a DWF file is not device specific.
• You can zoom in on a DWF file and see additional details instead of fuzzy pixels.
• You can navigate hyperlinks in a DWF file to meaningfully connect parts of your designs.
• You can locate design information by searching for text in DWF files.
• You can share DWF files that are much smaller than plot files.

Comparison of DWF files to DWG files

• You can publish one DWF file that contains all of the data in one file instead of multiple files as is done with DWG.
• You can share files without worrying which versions (e.g. 2007, 2002i, R14) or flavors (i.e., no object enablers) of AutoCAD others have.
• You can share files that are not your original intellectual property (DWG). You decide the precision of the DWF files and what is in them (e.g., layer info or not).
• You can share DWF files that are generally about one twentieth the size of the original DWG files.
• You can print DWF files using the familiar Windows print process instead of the more complicated AutoCAD plotting process.
• You can include other types of information (e.g. spreadsheets, specifications) in a DWF file instead of just the design data (DWG).

Comparison of DWF files to PDF files

• You can send DWF files via email since they are smaller than corresponding PDF files.
• You can count and snap to objects in a DWF since DWF is an information model instead of a picture of a model.
• You can use a 3D viewer that most users prefer.

Text Search of DWF files

• You can locate designs on the web using the Google search engine.
• You can display your search results as hyperlinks or thumbnails (using the Project Freewheel Viewer: http://freewheel.labs.autodesk.com).
• You can locate designs on your local hard drive using the Windows file search capability (requires an install of Autodesk DWF Viewer or Autodesk Design Review).

Publishing DWF files

• You can publish DWF files from Autodesk design software using the built-in capabilities. You should not use the DWF Writer for Autodesk products.
• You can use the PUBLISH command from AutoCAD to produce optimal DWF files. You can include attribute information using AutoCAD blocks.
• You can capture 3D models from other design software using the DWF Writer for 3D.
• You can publish Word documents, Excel workbooks, and Project schedules to DWF using the DWF Writer for 2D.
• You can combine sheets from the DWF Writer with your design data (from Autodesk software) into one DWF file using Autodesk Design Review.
• You can combine 3D design data, 2D design data, and other types of data (e.g. cost, schedule, action items) in the same DWF file.

Using the DWF Viewer with DWF files

• Content Pane: You can easily see and navigate to the list of 3D models and 2D sheets in a DWF file.
• Model Pane: You can use how your 3D data is organized to select and view portions of your model.
• Markups Pane: You can easily step through the various reviewer comments and examine them one at a time.
• Properties Pane: You can learn more about an object than what it looks like, such as its cost, center of gravity, or fire rating.
• Layers Pane: You can turn layers on or off to highlight only the aspects of the design you are interested in.
• Views Pane: You can conveniently look at a model from various angles.
• Cross Sections Pane: You can examine what’s inside a model to obtain additional detail.
• Animations Pane: You can see how parts are combined to assemble a design.

Using the Project Freewheel Viewer with DWF files

• You can view and print a DWF file without installing any additional software. You can do this on Windows, Linux, or Mac OSX.
• You can email others links to your DWF files and they can view them without installing any additional software. All they need is a web browser and an internet connection.

Using Autodesk Design Review with DWF files

• You can leverage an electronic review process to reduce the time associated with the process.
• You can measure accurately since Autodesk Design Review snaps intelligently to objects. DWF files are viewport aware when measurements are taken.
• You can track the status of markup items as part of an electronic review process.

Using DWF files with AutoCAD, Revit, and Inventor

• You can view the review comments captured in a DWF file in the design application.
• You can update the original design while viewing the review comments.
• AutoCAD: You can view a DWF file as a DWF Underlay which works much like an XREF.

Embedding DWF Files

• You can include a DWF file in a web page to showcase your design data as part of your company’s web site.
• You can include a DWF file as part of an Office Document to integrate design data as part of an overall presentation.

Integrate the ActiveX Control for DWF files

• You can turn off the Autodesk-supplied user interface and control your design data with your own Visual Basic application.
• You can develop customized web-based solutions using JavaScript.

Create Your Own DWF Application

• You can download the Autodesk DWF Toolkit for free and develop your own C++ application.
• You can become a DWF partner to join part of the ecosystem being built around DWF.

Local Printing of DWF files

• You can print your design data using the familiar Windows printing process.
• You can take advantage of HP Instant Printing to reduce paper waste.
• You can save time by batch printing DWF files with Autodesk Design Review.

Commercial Printing of DWF files

• You can send (ftp, email, Buzzsaw) DWF files to commercial reprographers for printing.
• You can view DWF files and order prints as part of the DFS online plan room from Adenium Systems.
• You can receive prints from reprographers who process DWF files using Océ Repro Desk, PLP PlotWorks, Kip Powerprint, ARC MetaPrint, CADzation AcroPlot Repro, or Ratio PLOTBASE|PM.

In addition:

• Facilities Management - You can manage office moves and other facilities management tasks using DWF with Autodesk FMDesktop and FM:Systems Interact Workspace Management Suite.
• Quantity Takeoff - You will be able to count objects (automatically), electronically compute square footage and other measurements, and apply cost factors in a DWF files with Autodesk Takeoff.
• Dynamic Maps - You can select a country, state, city, street, and eventually building and see increased levels of detail as you go.
• Illustration - You can apply styles to designs (without having to color them by hand) using DWF files and Autodesk Impression.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Autodesk University CD34-1 Handout: What Can DWF Do For You?

Vice President of Autodesk Labs, Brian Mathews, and I will be teaching a class entitled:

CD34-1: What Can DWF Do For You?

Here is an advanced copy of the handout:

Download CD34-1.doc (302.5K)

Product Marketing Manager, Gabrielle Friedly, has pulled together a DWF Tips Booklet that we will be handing out at Autodesk University:

DWFTips.pdf

With over 300 people already signed up, this is not the proper forum to address specific viewing or printing issues. Our goal for this class is to demonstrate the variety of things that can be done with DWF files in addition to traditional viewing and printing.

DWF Definition

A frequently asked question is "How does Autodesk define DWF?"

DWF is an acronym for Design Web Format.

• DWF provides the foundation for lifecycle management.

• DWF enables organizations to connect critical design information into product, project, and asset workflows without compromising the accuracy, security, and intent of the original design data.

• DWF is: complete, connected, secure, and open. From a marketing perspective, this means:

  • Complete: Maintains data-rich design information built into CAD files and 3D models—at a fraction of the file size.

  • Connected: Efficiently manages and shares design information with project teams to streamline review, data management, and collaboration.

  • Secure: Allows for distribution of published design files, not originals.

  • Open: Built on open, standards-based technology and available to developers free of charge or royalties.

In technical terms what this means is:

• Complete: DWF files have the proper coordinate system and data precision so they can be measured accurately. DWF files use advanced compression techniques to make them as small as possible. DWF files are self contained - no missing XREFs or image files.

• Connected: DWF files do not require design application software. The user interfaces of the free Autodesk DWF Viewer and Autodesk Design Review are geared towards the non-CAD user. DWF files can be integrated into other documents such as HTML pages or Microsoft Office documents and leverage capabilities like hyperlinks and text search.

• Secure: Autodesk design applications provide a user with the ability to decide what gets published into the DWF file. Afraid that users will turn off layers and work with incomplete information? Don't include layers in your DWF. Afraid intellectual property thieves will reverse engineer your mechanical design? Publish the DWF with measurement disabled.

• Open: Autodesk takes the same DWF Toolkit that it uses in its own products and posts it to the web for anyone to download. The toolkit includes the DWF specification, C++ source code, as well as some sample programs.

So from either a marketing or technical perspective, DWF is the right format for the job of going beyond the paper.

How did DWF get its name?

From the blog posting on Autodesk Viewing History:

With the internet boon in 1995, Autodesk customers wanted to share designs on the web. Bandwidth ... made it impractical for Netscape Navigator Plug-ins to be larger than a megabyte. With this in mind, the plug-in needed to be simple. ...So Brian Mathews invented the DWF format. The format featured file compression and tessellated (ready to draw) geometry. The easiest way to create such a file was to have the WHIP ADI video driver for AutoCAD R13 dump its display list to a file.

To continue the story - about this same time, Microsoft was unveiling its ActiveX technology. Sun was releasing Java. Acronyms were not in vogue. These technologies had cool names. Given that the files came from the WHIP ADI driver, we thought we would call them WHIP files. Customers could easily "whip them around." The extension would be .whp. Then Vice President of AutoCAD R13, John Lynch, noted that if we just called them WHIP files, no one would associate them with AutoCAD. We hated to miss out on the name recognition of one of our most popular products. So in the spirit of compromise, the file format was named DWF - Drawing Web Format - so it would closely resemble DWG, and the Netscape Navigator Plug-in was called WHIP!. We had the best of both worlds - association with AutoCAD and a cool new name. Later when other Autodesk design applications also began to publish DWF files, we updated the name to Design Web Format recognize its true essence. Now we normally just refer to DWF as DWF, since the format has become so popular.

So what's in a name? According to William Shakespeare, "a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet."

Comparison of DWF and PDF

In a previous blog posting, I mentioned that what separates DWF from PDF is that DWF is specifically designed for CAD data whereas PDF is a generic solution. This is evident when the formats are compared based on items of interest to the design community.

Feature	DWF	PDF
History:	Design Web Format, an open, secure format designed specifically for sharing rich engineering design data.	Portable Document Format, a generic format designed for textual-based document exchange.
Basic Functionality:	Enables team members who do not use CAD applications to participate in the digital processes by viewing building, GIS, or product designs.	Preserves document integrity, and enables businesses to simplify document processes.
Publishable from AutoCAD?	Yes. DWF creation is a built-in feature of Autodesk design applications such as AutoCAD, AutoCAD-based products, Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk MapGuide, and Autodesk Revit software. Users can "publish" rich design data with a single click.	Yes. AutoCAD 2007 has the ability to plot to PDF.
Scalability for Design Data?	Yes. Extensible and highly compressed print-ready format supports multiple pages and design intelligence.	No. Limited compression not architected for large data sets or design intelligence.
High Precision for Design Data?	Yes. A DWF can go as high as 2,147,483,648 DPI. As such DWF can measure the continental USA with a precision of +/- 2.4 millimeters when using the maximum DPI and paper size settings.	No. A PDF for the Adobe Reader is limited to 2,400 DPI.
Multisheet Drawing Sets?	Yes. The user can publish multisheet drawing sets from multiple DWG source files to a single DWF file automatically. DWF also preserves design coordinates and sheet properties.	Yes, but with significantly longer publishing times and resource consumption than DWF.
3D Models?	Yes. 3D can be published from Autodesk design applications or captured from non-Autodesk OpenGL applications.	Yes.
Contains Design Intelligence?	Yes. DWF files are more than an electronic plot and can contain sheet, object, component, and mass properties, as well as markup data. A DWF knows a door is a door.	No. Extra data is limited to markup data only. To a PDF, a door is a collection of polylines.
Optimum File Compression for Designs?	Yes.	No. PDF files are often three-times larger, straining bandwidth and system resources, and slowing publishing and viewing times.
Open Access, Extensible to Other Applications?	Yes. The DWF Toolkit enables users to develop applications that read or write multisheet DWF drawings for free. In addition, the free Autodesk DWF Viewer API makes it possible for end users to embed DWF drawings in HTML and Office applications, or for developers to customize the viewer for use in third-party applications.	Yes, but the developer will have to purchase a license to the libraries to create a PDF.
Preserve CAD Layers?	Yes, automatically publishes only those layers the author intended as defined by the AutoCAD layout. For security purposes layer information is not published unless selected by the author.	Yes, but only with the additional purchase of Acrobat Professional. Uses a layer selection tool separate from the AutoCAD layout, which can lead to standards violations. Layer information is published by default, creating a security issue where end-users may print a document with critical layers inadvertently turned off.
Print to Scale?	Yes. Supports printing of both 2D and 3D drawings, maps, and models.	Yes, with some caveats on large format devices.
Supports Different Scales per Viewport?	Yes.	No.
Supports Merge Control?	Directly.	Indirectly through 3rd party software. This can introduce printing issues.
AutoCAD-Based Views?	Yes.	No. Supported by the raw file format, but not exported by Acrobat Professional.
Hyperlinks?	Yes, automatically published from the AutoCAD family of products and Autodesk Revit.	No. Supported by the raw file format but not exported by Acrobat Professional.
Redlines/Comments?	Yes, with the free Autodesk Design Review.	Yes, with the additional purchase of Acrobat Professional.
Copy Protection?	Available via the free AutoShred-DWF application from Pinion Software.	Yes.
Password Protection?	Yes.	Yes.
Raster Graphics?	Yes.	Yes.
Vector Graphics?	Yes.	Yes.
Free Viewer Available?	Autodesk DWF Viewer (17MB download). Autodesk Design Review (27MB download).	Yes (20MB download).
Viewer Already Installed?	Possibly. Over 12 million users have downloaded and installed the free Autodesk DWF Viewer.	Likely.
Platforms:	Windows; Other platforms supported via Project Freewheel and other third party solutions.	Windows, Pocket PC, Symbian, Palm, Macintosh, Unix, Linux, Sun Solaris.
Languages:	DWF Viewer: 14 [Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish]	Acrobat Reader: 30

PDF works great for text-based documents. Designs, however, require more.

Autodesk Web Site URLs for DWF

In addition to the Autodesk discussion groups, another place to obtain information is from the Autodesk web site:

• Autodesk DWF Viewer
  http://www.autodesk.com/dwfviewer
  This is the starting page for information about the free Autodesk DWF Viewer.

• Autodesk Design Review (formerly known as Autodesk DWF Composer)
  http://www.autodesk.com/designreview
  This is the starting page for information about Autodesk Design Review. A tutorial is available on http://www.autodesk.com/designreview-tutorial.

• Autodesk DWF Writer
  http://www.autodesk.com/dwfwriter
  This is the starting page for information about the free Autodesk DWF Writer.

• World of DWF
  http://www.autodesk.com/dwf
  This is the starting page for information about the Design Web Format itself.

• DWF Gallery
  http://www.autodesk.com/dwf-gallery
  This is a collection of sample DWF files submitted by Autodesk customers.

• DWF Customer Showcase
  http://www.autodesk.com/dwf-customers
  This is a collection of sample DWF files and associated success stories about Autodesk customers.

• Autodesk DWF Developer Center
  http://www.autodesk.com/dwf-developers
  This is the starting page for the DWF Developer Center. It has a variety of information as well as links that eventually lead to the DWF Toolkit.

• Autodesk DWF Toolkit
  http://www.autodesk.com/dwftoolkit
  This is a shortcut for navigating to the download page for C++ programmers to obtain one of the freely available DWF Toolkits.

Does DWF support digital signatures?

DWF does not yet have direct support for digital signatures, though it is planned for an upcoming release. Today visible seals can be applied to the DWF file in the CAD design or using Custom Symbols within Autodesk Design Review software. The background on this topic was covered by Senior Architect, Brian Mathews, in a Between the Lines blog article.

What is the difference between native design formats and DWF?

Best wishes to you on this Memorial Day. Though this is a holiday for most Americans, many Autodesk employees are busy at work on Amazon. Memorial Day was first observed in 1868 when two women in Columbus, Missouri placed flowers on both Confederate and Union graves. We are grateful to all who have given their lives in service to our country. So in the grand scheme of things, working on a holiday weekend is not the worst thing to happen to someone.

Publishing native design files such as DWG, RVT, and IPT formats created with design authoring software can be impractical for a variety of reasons. Protecting intellectual property is a primary concern because anyone with the AutoCAD, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk Inventor, or another design authoring application can edit the file or steal the design. Moreover, the cost of the authoring software may exceed the needs of the user. Paying for everyone on the project team to install and then learn to use a sophisticated CAD or mapping application can be costly. Using the DWF format avoids these issues.

DWF is a secure file format that is smaller, more compact, and easier to distribute than DWG, RVT, or IPT files yet still maintains the rich design data of the original design. CAD users can publish drawings, maps, or models to the DWF format, so reviewers see exactly what the publisher intended them to see. In addition, the DWF file format supports multisheet drawing sets and makes it easier for team members who don’t use CAD to view and print.