Autodesk Feedback: DWG Format Change!

[eric.stover]

Now that I have your attention, what are the hurdles you and your company face when this event happens? Or is it a non-issue?

Let's pretend that we changed the file format in AutoCAD 2006, what impact would this have on your decision to upgrade, install and use the product? (Keep in mind that you could always save back a few releases.)

Thanks,

Eric

[jimmy.bergmark]

Eric, I guess you mean AutoCAD 2007 since it would be a real problem to change it for 2006. ;-)

I'm all for a format change since I know that it's needed to make improvements in many areas that now are postponed until a format change happens.
As long as the 3:rd party applications we use are quick to upgrade we would be able to make the transition quite smothly.

[RobertB]

Eric, it is a small issue with us. Some of our clients are still in 2000-2002 land. And a large item for Autodesk to consider, that you might not be aware of, is that some government agencies require DWG files in 2000-based format.

However, a file format change would not prevent us from upgrading, as long as the file format change gave us the benefit of full name-based plot style support for objects such as dimensions and tables! :veryevil:

[Wanderer]

Now that I have your attention, what are the hurdles you and your company face when this event happens? Or is it a non-issue?

Let's pretend that we changed the file format in AutoCAD 2006, what impact would this have on your decision to upgrade, install and use the product? (Keep in mind that you could always save back a few releases.)

Thanks,

Ericmy cardiologist wants a word with you. ;)

anyway, now that I've gotten over the shock... from a technological standpoint, I wouldn't mind it if it would mean access to better some features...

on the other hand, with what I do... it can be a pain. I didn't do the upgrade to 2004 because of the file format/voloview express thing.

I work in FM, and I have dozens of pc's around the campus with sporadic users. I am not going to duplicate all 60,000 of my files to dwf/pdf just so someone can pull up and look/plot one at any random time. So... when I just 'had' to have 2005, I ended up deciding to go for it and use bentley view on those other pc's as a replacement for voloview... but, even now, a year later, I still have some pc's that don't have the program (going through IT, not within my authority to do the installs myself, let alone taking the time to go around and do it), and we're still dealing with that. So, a sort of a hassle with sporadic users.

~shrug~

[Brian Myers]

Eric,

Its an interesting question... most of us (in CAD manager posts) have seen the format change before and we've always over come any obstacles that this may have presented us. Obviously you'll get complaints, but if the overall product improves then dealing with the file format change is a rather minor issue for improved productivity and future product enhancements.

On a related side note, I might suggest creating a "file exchange" utility that users of previous AutoCAD releases could use to convert the new file format to a format they can use. Even if this utility doesn't physically open the "2007" file and simply converts it to "2004" format for use. You could even charge "X" amount of money for it and people would likely flock to it. In this situation, I doubt you would have many complaints if the reasons for the format change were somewhat described...

[amy.stuart]

i have to agree with the majority here. We would always be welcome to a format change if it is for the better and we can utilize multiple more tools due to this change.

On the flip side we always have customers that are complaining our updated AutoCAD does NOT work for them to view the files we share. So we currently deal with that and will continue. But the departments that have 3rd party applications will be affected.

I am sure a change of format would not affect our decision to upgrade, it may just affect a few of our current situations of sharing drawings with customers.

[eric.stover]

Jimmy - I said "pretend", I'm not here to preannounce anything :)

[eric.stover]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, this is really useful information and helps validate our product direction. We have a lot of feature work ahead which requires a format change and we'd like to bundle it together in one release, then hold DWG for another several years.

After several releases, we're reaching that point where we'd like to implement this work.

-Eric

[Spectrefish]

We have never had much trouble with format change.

[RobertB]

Moderators... Eric (from Autodesk) is requesting information on AutoCAD's possible future direction. The appropriate forum is the Wishlist forum. This is where Autodesk employees will look for information regarding what users wish for AutoCAD. Thanks for your zealous efforts, but please stop moving this thread around.

[Steve_Bennett]

Maybe just one more release with no file format change would be for the better. It seems as if every 3rd release the format changes. For some companies, thats just when they've gotten settled down with the last release they implemented. I agree w/ everyone else's comments & I'm always going to be a proponent for change, but for just once it would be nice to have a break.

[michael.12445]

It's a bigger problem for us than most, evidently. We still have one or two consultants that require drawings in R14 format, but we are just now beginning to get drawings from others (civil engineers, etc.) that are in the 2004 format. We ourselves are using 2002, which can write to R14 but cannot read 2004. The problem is that versions later than 2002 won't write to the R14 format...

Notice I said "won't", not "can't." There is no technical reason why each successive version of AutoCAD shouldn't be able to read AND write DWG formats at least back to R12 if not earlier (or does Bentley know something that Autodesk doesn''t???). It's just that Autodesk chooses not to include this capability as a matter of policy.

So I'd say, if the developers at Autodesk are considering introducing new features that would require a revision to the DWG format, by all means, go ahead and pursue them. Just tell the folks in marketing that for those of us in the trenches who have to exchange DWG files, backwards compatibilty is enough of an issue that cutting it out of the product has already caused some of us to seek out alternative, more compatible software.

Your competitors, after all, are telling us that we "deserve better."

Michael Evans
Togawa & Smith, Inc.

[robert.1.hall72202]

Will changing the file format decrease file sizes???? That would be a plus. Some larger data files bog down even the most massive computers.

[eric.stover]

That might be the case - we've already implmented compression in DWG to lessen the size but I'm sure there are ways to continue to trim the file size further.

-Eric

[rclayton]

I am with Brian on this one ... when Autodesk changes the DWG format someone with a previous version has to request the user of the new software to step-down their data, the control over this should be in the hands of the recipient i.e the person with the older version should have an exchange utility available so they can freely receive data from other sources and not be forced to upgrade.

[trey]

Eric ... I know this thread is getting a little stale, but here's my take on file format changes. Basically, they mean nothing to me within our office. We can handle that in here no problem at all... We are on subscription and we all upgrade at the same time. And for that matter, during the brief period that some of us have the new version, and some are still using the older one, we set the new version to save as the older release.

Now, here's the other side ... the part that I hate about it. With each new release, the people that upgrade first are burdened with having to save down for their consultants and/or clients. I think this is extremely unfair. We are the ones that are paying to stay up to date, yet we are burdened with having to convert our files to an older format. As for a "wish list" type item, I think it should be heavily considered that there be a universal file translator that would let someone using r2000 convert my r2006 files to their version. I'd much rather that scenario than to have them pay me for my time converting files. I simply do not care to waste my time doing "busy work" - which is what file conversion is.

I've heard the reason there is no such animal as a "universal autocad file converter" is because it would more easily allow people with older releases to continue to use them without upgrading. But once again, the burden is still placed on the paying/upgrading customer, not the guy who refuses to upgrade. And let's face it, ... in this industry, you cannot simply tell someone that you will not work with them because they don't have the most recent version of the software.

EDIT: I just realized that this thread had gone this direction already ... I agree with the others (obviously) about this exchange utility... so let me ask this. Is Autodesk considering something like this at all? Or are things going to stay as is for now?

[eric.stover]

Yes - we are looking into a more robust file translator (above and beyond the Batch Drawing Converter whic hyou can download from autodesk.com today.)
-Eric

[lcamara]

I just thought I'd post this, even though I'm not really saying anything new, to give you a better feel for your customers.

Background: Our draftsmen are using 2005, set to automatically save down to 2k format. We purchased the upgrade (from 2002) at the beginning of the year, and got on subscription. I just started evaluating 2006, and will probably roll it out in a week or so. We also own a subscription to MicroStation (which I used in college, but don't anymore), which we only have because we're required to submit in that format for some clients (we just use it to convert). Also, one of our engineers does all his own drafting in ME10 (a program I'd never heard of until 1 1/2 years ago, when I started working here). He has a free lifetime license to ME10 because he wrote a bunch of routines which were incorporated into the product. Some of the other engineers block out sections or do simple editing, but they're mostly just viewing & printing (or asking the cad guys to do it) and working with the hardcopy. We'd like to see the engineers integrating cad into their design work. We also have RISA, RAM, ETABS, Enercalc SEL, ADAPT, & some others, which the engineers sometimes use for calcs. I really don't know much about those programs except how to install them.

My main dillema is what to do for the engineers. So, I've started deploying Bentley Redline (which is free to subscribers) for engineers to use to view, measure, & markup drawings. I'm also going to look at IntelliCAD as a possible AutoCAD alternative, since it runs LISP.

We only work in 2D, but I write a lot of LISP. I've looked at using LT with a 3rd party LISP add-on, but because it wouldn't be on a network license it's not any cheaper.

I'd like to keep things simple - I'd much rather just keep buying AutoCAD network licenses until we have enough for everybody, but AutoCAD's just too expensive for what many of our engineers are doing with it.

What I'd like to see: free drawing view/print/measure/markup program for subscribers. Maybe you could make it linked to the number of licenses (even 1 network viewer license per full AutoCAD license would help), although it still wouldn't compare to Bentley's policy (we can install Redline on all the computers, even though we only have one subscription).
That, along with a (free to subscribers) drawing converter that can be used without AutoCAD, as mentioned in other posts above.

Oh yeah, I should also say that there's no way we're going to buy DWF Composer (to get the DWG viewer) for everybody and have to buy a new one every time AutoCAD changes the format. There's also no way we can use the free DWF viewer, because that would require a conversion by the cad guys. I also want to try to avoid evaluating everybody's usage level, and custom-tailoring the solutions individually.

For all those who actually got down this far - thanks for reading my post! :)

[jpaulsen]

Our office does not have any issues with drawing format changes. It would be very helpful, as stated above, to be able to save back to several older file formats using the Save as command.

Most of the consultants we work with are using current versions but many clients are using older versions. We have one still on R12.

[Steve Johnson]

DWG format changes are always a minor pain, but one we can live with. The worst thing Autodesk can do to us with DWG formats, though, is to reduce the number of old formats AutoCAD can save to. AutoCAD 2004 gave us most pain not because it introduced a new format, but because in an unprecedented move, it dropped support for multiple old DWG formats. And no, R12 DXF is nothing like an adequate substitute.

So, if 2007 needs a new DWG, so be it. But if it drops support for 2000/2000i/2002, I and many others will be most annoyed.

[SteveChestnut]

Hello,

Many of you talk about the lack of a free DWG viewer from Autodesk. I agree that it's a shame. Losing the ability to use Volo View with the latest file format really hurt my company. Many are using the free Bentley View. We did too for a while but be careful.

Sometimes DWGs with 3rd party elements will not display properly. We ended up buying copies of CAD Viewer 4.0 from GuthCAD www.guthcad.com and have been happy with it. If you buy in quantity the price goes down. I still wish Autodesk would bring back free Volo View. It was perfect for engineers who get an occasional shop drawing.

Take care,
Steve

[frankowen2]

Hello,

Many of you talk about the lack of a free DWG viewer from Autodesk. I agree that it's a shame. Losing the ability to use Volo View with the latest file format really hurt my company. Many are using the free Bentley View. We did too for a while but be careful.

Sometimes DWGs with 3rd party elements will not display properly. We ended up buying copies of CAD Viewer 4.0 from GuthCAD www.guthcad.com and have been happy with it. If you buy in quantity the price goes down. I still wish Autodesk would bring back free Volo View. It was perfect for engineers who get an occasional shop drawing.

Take care,
Steve


Yes, I was deeply saddened when they did away with VV express. I used to have the download URL in my signature when I sent files to clients. I didn't know they had dropped it until someone called me up and asked why they needed to buy software to look at the files. Since then I've just been plotting them as PDF's.

[Steve_Bennett]

Hello,

Many of you talk about the lack of a free DWG viewer from Autodesk. I agree that it's a shame. Losing the ability to use Volo View with the latest file format really hurt my company. Many are using the free Bentley View. We did too for a while but be careful.

Sometimes DWGs with 3rd party elements will not display properly. We ended up buying copies of CAD Viewer 4.0 from GuthCAD www.guthcad.com (http://www.guthcad.com/) and have been happy with it. If you buy in quantity the price goes down. I still wish Autodesk would bring back free Volo View. It was perfect for engineers who get an occasional shop drawing.

Take care,
StevePerhaps autodesk would be open to providing free dwg viewers to equal the number of autodesk product licenses a company has. That would be nice.

[rkmcswain]

Consider that the free DWG viewer was taken away at the same time that Autodesk is trying to promote the DWF file format. Solution? DWF composer with it's DWG viewer. Except the DWG viewer is just that, a viewer. No inquiry tools. In order to do more with the file, guess what? Output a DWF copy and open in the DWF Composer.

Surprise - it's no secret that Autodesk is trying every trick in the book in order to promote DWF's.

So we are supposed to purchase X number of copies of DWF Composer, then force the user to open the DWG, 'publish' to DWF, just to run an inquiry command on the DWG.... :roll:

[noozybkk]

Yes - we are looking into a more robust file translator (above and beyond the Batch Drawing Converter whic hyou can download from autodesk.com today.)
-Eric

For once I actually read through a full thread before impulsively replying and it paid off. :)

I was gonna say "Change away. Do what you have to do with the format, just make sure we have a batch drawing converter available so we can still send to backward clients"

[Andre Baros]

As a Revit user, no longer an AutoCAD user, I appreciate improvements to the dwg format because they're really our only way to share files with ANY other application. It's sort of a Rosetta stone format for us until Revit can export in more formats or more programs can import native Revit files (neither is likely) That said, why can't improvements be made without loosing backward compatibility... there are a lot of consultants who can't justify the latest version of AutoCAD just to open our files, when neither of us is using AutoCAD anymore. I don't care so much about the ability to view DWG's (we're using DWF's and PDF's and LDF's oh my) but about the ability to share data which a lot of different consultants using a lot of different applications.

[dkh007.66346]

I would prefer that the file format remain the same for as long as possible. Especially after the last version is retired, in this case 2002. Hopefully when that happens all of our clients and consultants will be on the same version. 9 times out of 10 our office uses eTransmit and has the default version setup up to save to the file format 2000. But sometimes we just need to send a single file and if it is not saved back it becomes a slight waste of time on both ends.

Daniel Hargreaves, CSI, RAS

[kevinn145]

A DWG format change has only effected us when we get to many releases behind what some of our clients and customers are using.

It hasn't been much of an issue for a couple years and after we finally upgrade to 2006 from 2002 this year won't be for a few more years now that we finally have hardward and an OS we can use through hopefully as least Acad 2008 ;)

As long as we and others can save back down and extremely useful tools like DWGgateway are available it shouldn't be a huge issue for anyone.

[Steve Johnson]

DWG format changes are always a minor pain, but one we can live with. The worst thing Autodesk can do to us with DWG formats, though, is to reduce the number of old formats AutoCAD can save to. AutoCAD 2004 gave us most pain not because it introduced a new format, but because in an unprecedented move, it dropped support for multiple old DWG formats. And no, R12 DXF is nothing like an adequate substitute.

So, if 2007 needs a new DWG, so be it. But if it drops support for 2000/2000i/2002, I and many others will be most annoyed.
To give you some idea of the sort of problems we would get if 2007 dropped support for saving in 2000 DWG format, here is a breakdown of the releases used by external companies with which we exchange AutoCAD drawings. After the name of the release comes the number of companies using that release:

R14: 3 (we don't support them using R14, but they use it anyway...)
2000: 44
2000i: 9
2002: 50
2004: 44
2005: 21
2006: 10

Total: 181

So, if 2007 dropped 2000 DWG support and we decided to use 2007, we would have problems exchanging drawings with 57% of them.

[Steve Johnson]

Talking to myself... :-?

This list shows how DWG-backwards-compatible various releases of AutoCAD have been:

2006: 2004/2005/2006, 2000/2000i/2002 (6 years)
2005: 2004/2005/2006, 2000/2000i/2002 (5 years)
2004: 2004/2005/2006, 2000/2000i/2002 (4 years)
2002: 2000/2000i/2002, R14, R13 (7 years)
2000i: 2000/2000i/2002, R14, R13 (6 years)
2000: 2000/2000i/2002, R14, R13 (5 years)
R14: R14, R13, R11/12 (7 years)
R13: R13, R11/12 (5 years)
R12: R11/12 (2 years)
R11: R11/12
R10: R10
R9: R9
V2.6: V2.6
V2.5: V2.5
V2.1: V2.1
V2.0: V2.0
V1.4: V1.4

Let's do a hypothetical:

2007: 2007, 2004/2005/2006, 2000/2000i/2002 (7 years)

Great, 2007 would be the equal (with R14 and 2002) most backward-compatible AutoCAD in history! Well done, Autodesk! Go for the record with 2008! :grin:

Now let's do another one:

2007: 2007, 2004/2005/2006 (3 years)

If Autodesk were to do that to us, it would make 2007 the least backward-compatible AutoCAD since 1992. Boo! Hiss! :mad:

[lcamara]

...I don't care so much about the ability to view DWG's (we're using DWF's and PDF's and LDF's oh my)...
Just curious, what's an LDF?

BTW, I don't use Revit, but it's something I've been keeping an eye on (and I'll be evaluating Revit Structural as soon as I find the time). It's been a long time coming. :)

[Mike.Perry]

Hi

Just a heads-up...

Autodesk Batch DWG Converter Beta (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=22350)

:beer: Mike

[BWG]

Autodesk needs to just go with PDF. PDF is so much more popular than DWF. I have not had any luck getting clients to use the DWF Viewer, but all love the PDFs I send them. Too much trouble for them to get it - DWF. I say go ahead with the format change, it is usually for the better. Dump DWF and just have a free DWGenabled/RVT ect. viewer that is free for anyone to download and use, without all this silly data collection nonesense for the interested downloaders. Or, Bentley will just win more fans - except for the silly data collection nonsense. Once they know of the viewing problems, it will be corrected. It would be nice for subscription members to have access to a viewer that would provide redline capabilities without all the tedious translations. Maybe that could be a plug-in or something, maybe part of this new format change.

[lcamara]

Autodesk needs to just go with PDF. PDF is so much more popular than DWF... Dump DWF and just have a free DWGenabled/RVT ect. viewer that is free for anyone to download and use...
At first I also thought it was just a redundant format, but as far as I know, you can't embed a PDF within a web page and allow zooming/panning/etc. Sure, you can link to them & view them within your web browser, but unless there's some way to do it with a java app, you can't do it (if anyone knows something to the contrary, please speak up).

The one thing I have against it now is the lack of (free) redlining capability. We have network licenses of AutoCAD, but if one of the engineers wants to just markup a DWF of a typical detail that's on our site, he/she has to go and print it, or open up the equivalent DWG in AutoCAD.

That said, the Architects still request PDFs or plot files when they want to print the drawings.

[SteveChestnut]

Hello,

I agree that PDFs are more popular. I like them, my customers and vendors like them.

We have a need to send drawings out for comment and redlines. We are using Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 to do this. With Acrobat Pro 7.0 the creator of a PDF can enable it to offer the comment and redline toolbars to anyone using the free Adobe Reader 7.0. Some people may complain about the cost BUT with Adobe Acrobat Pro 7.0 I can create a PDF, enable it for commenting, send it out to anyone and all they need to mark it up is the FREE Adobe Reader AND I can be confident that this will work and the recipient will have no problems.

If Autodesk people are reading this the lack of a DWG viewer really hurts my office.
There are many times and engineer or estimator just wants to call up a drawing and print it. What was simple and easy for them is now gone. We really miss the DWG viewer.
My $.02

Regards,
Steve

[rkmcswain]

If Autodesk people are reading this the lack of a DWG viewer really hurts my office.
There are many times and engineer or estimator just wants to call up a drawing and print it. What was simple and easy for them is now gone. We really miss the DWG viewer.
My $.02

A) Autodesk DOES offer a DWG viewer. It comes bundled with DWF Composer.

B) See this link (http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2005/07/standalone_batc.html) regarding the future availability of a true standalone "Batch Drawing Converter" - where a person with an old copy of Volo View could take your 2004 drawing, save it down to 2000, and view it in VV. Not exactly what we want, but a step in the right direction.

[BWG]

A) Autodesk DOES offer a DWG viewer. It comes bundled with DWF Composer.

B) See this link (http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2005/07/standalone_batc.html) regarding the future availability of a true standalone "Batch Drawing Converter" - where a person with an old copy of Volo View could take your 2004 drawing, save it down to 2000, and view it in VV. Not exactly what we want, but a step in the right direction.


I could see this working fine for consultants, but clients are probably unwilling to pay for composer and then try and learn its features. Unfortunately, PDF does not embed in a web page, not that I have found, but I am sure adobe could change this without too much trouble and is probably working on it. They do have 3D capability as can be seen with the Microstation 3D PDF composer, so they are trying to make PDF a better fit for CAD and will probably win over the masses due to the fact that more companies are standardizing on it. For DWF to work, all the different CAD vendors need to be on it. With PDF they are/can be and everyone can be on it no matter if they are CAD or Administrative, FM, whatever. But, this DWF thing is taking this thread somewhere other than what was originally asked. So, a poll could be good to see if a new DWG format is in order.