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AutoCAD Drawings on the Web
Index
Introduction
AutoCADŽ is the most popular engineering design package, with an installed base of more than 2,000,000 users. There are literally bil-lions of AutoCADŽ DWG drawings present worldwide. Each year over 3,000,000 people get trained in AutoCADŽ. Recently, a few limited web access features have been included in AutoCADŽ. At the same time, there is need for design data to be available over the web. Consequently, there is an increased demand, in the engineering community, for tools that allow access to AutoCADŽ drawings on the web.
The Language of Engineers
Drawings have a high degree of visual, or graphical content, and information is stored in a precise and accurate fashion. One can scale up a part of a drawing to any extent to view minute details. It is the virtually the means by which an engineer communicates with another engineer.
Just like HTML was a common language that allowed text and image based information to be easily put up on the web, drawings have great potential to be the language by which engineering information is put up on the web.
Need for real-time engineering information
Engineering information needs to be transferred between different groups, such as from one department to another in a manufacturing firm, between customers and suppliers of engineering parts, etc. Typically, engineering firms have thousands of parts and new ver sions are made of each part regularly. It would be ideal if the design department gives access to all information in a hierarchical and searchable manner over the web, so that it is quickly available when needed. At the same time, it should be ensured that the latest ver-sion, or the required version, is what is accessed through the web. AutoCADŽ on the web.
Tools are now available which allow direct access to CAD data the web. These tools come in the form of Plugins to web browsers that display CAD files within the browser window. There are two ways in which CAD data is being made available in the web. One approach is to convert drawing data into other formats such that it is easily viewable on the web. The other approach is to directly put drawings on the web. Autodesk has adopted the first approach. It came up with a format called the Drawing Web Format (.dwf) for everybody to convert drawings to - so that they can be viewed off the web using their WHIP! plugin. DWF files have much smaller file-sizes, and your data is secure, the original drawing is not made available on the web. To create DWF files one needs to open AutoCAD, open the drawing to convert to DWF, zoom into the area one is interested in, and save as DWF. You can also embed hyper-links in DWF files.
The Autodesk approach does not tackle the problem of putting on the web the large amounts of engineering data that is already avail-able. Large numbers of AutoCAD files already exist in DWG for-mat. It is very costly and time consuming to convert all these to DWF files. Even if one does convert the files, there is the greater danger to be wary of. When large number of files are being man-aged, there is the danger of a DWG file and its corresponding DWF being of different versions. Hence, wrong data may get communicated!
The Dr.DWG Solution
The Dr. DWG Suite of products is aimed at providing viewing solutions for the AutoCADŽ market. Compared to the Autodesk solu-tion, Dr. DWG NetView-NetServ JavaView provides a more flexible solution. At the same time, the focus has been on the communication needs of engineers. It provides a variety of advantages over any other competing solutions.
Dr.DWG works on both DWG and DWF files
Thus depending on your needs, you can choose to use any one of these features. If you wish to allow access to your existing base of AutoCADŽ DWG drawings over the web, you can do it using Dr. DWG NetView. If, on the other hand, you can convert your drawings to DWF, then the drawings can be viewed and printed on any Windows platform using Dr. DWG NetView, and on other plat-forms using Dr. DWG JavaView.
Ease of setup
Dr. DWG is ideal for quickly setting up Intranet/Internet sites. If you have a server where all your drawing files are stored, simply set up your web server on that machine. If you wish to serve DWG files, you need make no change for these files to be browsable over the web. Simply set to a particular value a setting called mime-type for DWG files in the server. In any machine where you wish to view these drawings in a web browser, set up Dr. DWG NetView plugin. This plugin will display the drawing in the browser window whenever you open a DWG file.
Integrate with your workflow
Every engineering firm adopts different workflow practices. But common to most of them is the design-and-review process. The designer or the design department makes the drawing. The manager or other departments (manufacturing, marketing) review and return it for changes, or approve it. Any system that fits in easily within this will be more likely to succeed. Dr. DWG NetView has an advanced redlining or annotation feature that allows this. Even without a web server, small amount of workflow integration can happen over the LAN, using a shared directory where everybody stores and retrieves the annotation information. Thus the comments made by the manager will be immediately available to designers over the LAN. Over the Internet, Dr. DWG NetServ can be used to upload and download users' annotations. NetServ is a CGI-Script running on the web server. When you download the drawing, you get the option to log into NetServ. After logging in, you get the list of users whose annotations you have permission to view. Once you choose a user, his redlining will be downloaded and displayed. NetServ does not serve drawings but manages users and their per-missions on other redlining. Thus redlining which you cannot view will not be downloaded. If you do not have permission to modify another's redlining, you will not be allowed this. This can also be useful in Extra net situations, such as when a customer wishes to comment on an architect's drawing.
Familiar yet powerful interface
You do not need training for using Dr. DWG. It combines the user interfaces of AutoCAD and familiar browser UI,at the same time, it provides advanced features of both. For example, you can navigate hyperlinks just as in any HTML page - by clicking on it. At the same time, you can zoom, pan, change view point, and even print/plot such that you have different penwidths for various colors, just as in AutoCAD.
Integrate into other software
Dr. DWG NetView has an interesting feature by which the engineering drawing can appear within a small window in a HTML page. This HTML page can contain other information, such as a Bill of Materials, which is dynamically generated from other software. Thus while the software takes care of other information and features such as security, NetView and NetServ can be used to provide the core engineering information by displaying the drawing, and allow enhanced communication through real time sharing of redlining/annotations.
Conclusion
As engineering drawings appear in larger numbers in Intranets and Extra nets, solutions that aid in integrating these drawings in a seam-less and in an intuitive manner will be of great demand. Dr. DWG products form a viable and rich alternative to AutoCAD's WHIP! plugin.
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