Viewing of DWGs is now pretty much free with or without AutodeskÝs efforts. However, AutodeskÝs competition have also kept Autodesk on its toes. Growing numbers of users are opting to send drawings and models by the Internet and there is generally more interest in formats that allow collaboration. ThereÝs also the issue of sending your intellectual property outside of your company in an easily editable and ÙcopyableÝ format. DWGs can get quite large and sending them over the Internet can be problematic. DWF is a very lightweight 2D and 3D format for communicating and securely collaborating with extended teams. There are a number of reasons for this confusion – the main one being AutodeskÝs re-emphasis on its DWF format (Design Web Format) for information exchange. DWG viewing outside of AutoCAD has been a moveable target and quite confusing for customers. Over the years there have been a number of branded products: View, Volo, Composer and now Design Review. More recently the only free application was a DWF viewer and users had to pay for an integrated DWG viewer and mark-up solution. At times it has cost money to have an Autodesk application that just viewed DWG files, at other times it has been free.

ItÝs safe to say that AutodeskÝs viewing, redline and mark-up strategy has gone through a number of iterations in recent years.

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