View AutoCAD drawings in a non-windows environment 3

[jkurji]

Dear All,

We are looking to publish our CAD drawings on the internet. Our client base is wide and we have no guarantee that all the clients will be using a Windows PC to access the drawings. Do you know of a possible solution which will allow AutoCAD 2004 drawings to be accessible over the internet regardless of the client operating system.

I have already looked at AutoVue for Java by Cimmetry Systems and Cadviewer from Tailor Made Software. I am wondering if there are any other software or solutions that I can use?

Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Jay.

 

[borgunit]

You can publish them into DWF format (which helps to keep your drawings from being taken natively) and Autodesk has a free viewer to open them (Volo View Express).

"Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right "
.. Henry Ford

 

[jkurji]

Thanks for the reply but volo view express will work only on Windows and clients needing access to CAD drawings can be on any platform. e.g linux with Netscape.

 

[borgunit]

Oh, sorry about that. I came across this a while back but have no real need for it right now. Give it a looksie.

http://lx-viewer.sourceforge.net/index.php

"Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right "
.. Henry Ford

 

[cfee]

2 Approaches that should work:
1: Download one of the many FREE PDF file creators. They work as a printer in your Autocad, as a windows standard printer.
MAC LINUX, and UNIX, etc OS's have versions of ADOBE's Acrobat Reader that'll run. The Quality of the PDF document is quite good. I change all of my LAYER colors (all entities created as color=bylayer) to color=7, with widths controlled via any laser ctb set in your plot window. With the PDF printer as your output device, you get a PDF you can use.
2: Client doesn't have ACAD and doesn't want to load Acrobat? A second usable approach is to copy-clip your drawing vectors into a WORD document. PS/MS Issues? e-mail me at cfee01@yahoo.com. I prefer sharing a drawing with all black lines. See the layers and colors comment above to achieve this.
A. The drawing is viewable as Word DOC content WITHOUT ACAD OR THE DRAWING on their system. NON-WINDOWS? Any modern word processor on any modern OS has the ability to view DOC files as native. I've found this to be a non-issue.
B. The drawing is viewable at any zoom, since the embedded content is true vectors. Downside: vectors will be printed at 1-pixel width, too thin for any practical use beyond on-screen viewing. Solution: You'll have to show them how to change their printer setting to 1: a lesser resolution- one step down yields VERY acceptable results, and 2: reset all colors printed to printing in black- not grey-scale.

Any questions, feel free to ask.
I can help you with file-size issues, too, if necessary.

Good Luck-

 

[IFRs]

Best to use pdf.
My advise is to buy Adobe 6.

 

[sc]

Why not print to a jpeg format and place the file on your web site. JPEGs are viewable under 99% of the operating systems available.


regards
sc

 

[kikas]

From my expirience i recomend to use pdf files. They are very good and Acrobat Reader is for free on every site

 

[jkurji]

Thanks to everyone who replied. Just have to present my findings now and wait for a decision!