If I may add, I often want to preview a drawing to see if it has the content
I am looking for without opening it in Autocad. Having a quick way to view a
drawing is needed. Also, there are times when the engineer needs to view a
drawing. He does not need or use autocad. So having the ability to view
drawings is a big benefit in my opinion. As to sharing Cad Files, that is
entirely optional. If you don't want someone to have the CAD file, send DWF.
"Darren J. Young" wrote in message
news:MPG.1af82a4664779ecb98970c@discussion.autodesk.com...
> > Great discussion guys! With DWG Viewer, we're just trying to be
realistic, as there are still a whole lot of DWG's out there in the world.
I agree that moving to DWF for sharing, communicating, and marking up is the
right place to go. However there are still a lot of people who are still
just now finding out about the value of a published file format like DWF.
Hopefully with the introduction of DWF Composer, they will find some
positive reasons to switch.
>
> You should never get rid of the DWG viewing capabilities for work flow
> reasons alone. I don't need to be sold on the advantages of DWF, I'm a
> big fan, but it just doesn't make sense in a lot of cases.
>
> As an example, here we get DWG files sent by customers and architects.
> Our sales, project managers and estimators use them with VoloView to
> look at the job, see what's there, print hard copies, etc. There's no
> need for DWF because our drafters also need the DWG's for producing our
> shop drawings and ticket drawings for the plants. Because we ultimately
> do use the DWG (for our drafters) it makes no sense whatsoever to
> introduce a second file format. This would be a duplication of data and
> information and something that just doesn't make sense or take advantage
> of the benefits of proper electronic data practices.
>
> The only real question is, will DWF Composer be as efficient as AutoCAD
> at opening and viewing DWG files. VoloView can often take a considerable
> amount more time to open the same DWG as AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT. Almost
> to the point that we prefer to use LT for a viewing application or a
> networked license of AutoCAD.
>
> --
> Darren J. Young
> CAD/CAM Systems Developer
>
> Cold Spring Granite Company
> 202 South Third Avenue
> Cold Spring, Minnesota 56320
>
> Email: dyoung@coldspringgranite.com
> Phone: (320) 685-5045
> Fax: (320) 685-5052