> 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