EXE Name, Product Name, Description, Company, Actions, Popularity. Acad.exe, AutoCAD, AutoCAD Application, Autodesk, Inc. Importing a DXF file into a CAD program and then exporting it is the best way to convert DXF files to a different CAD drawing file format. Many drawing programs such as Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw will also open, edit, and save DXF files, so this is another possibility.
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A file with the .DXF file extension is a Drawing Exchange Format file developed by Autodesk as a type of universal format for storing CAD models. The idea is that if the file format is supported in various 3D modeling programs, they can all import/export the same documents with ease.
The DXF format is similar to the AutoCAD Drawing Database file format that uses the DWG file extension. However, DXF files are more widely used in CAD programs since it can exist in a text-based, ASCII format that naturally makes it easier to implement in these types of applications.
DWF files are similar to DXF files but are instead used to share files online or via a free viewer program, while DXF is for interoperability.
How to Open DXF Files
Autodesk has a couple different free DXF file viewers available, including the online DXF opener called Autodesk Viewer as well as the DWG TrueView desktop program. There's also the AutoCAD 360 mobile app that lets you view your DXF files that are stored in online file storage services like Dropbox.
eDrawings Viewer from Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks is another free DXF file opener. To quickly open a DXF file online, use ShareCAD.
Some other DXF file viewers include Autodesk's AutoCAD and Design Review programs as well as TurboCAD, CorelCAD, CADSoftTools' ABViewer, Adobe Illustrator and ACD Systems' Canvas X.
Cheetah3D and some of the programs just mentioned will work for opening DXF files on macOS. Linux users can work with DXF files using LibreCAD.
Since ASCII versions of the DXF format are just text files, they can be opened with any text editor. Doing this, however, does not let you see the drawing like you would in an actual model viewer. Instead, they'll just be several sections of letters and numbers.
If none of these programs or services are opening your file, double-check that the file extension really does read .DXF and not something similar like DXR (Protected Macromedia Director Movie) or DXL (Domino XML Language), both of which open with programs unrelated to the CAD software mentioned on this page.
How to Convert a DXF File
Use Adobe Illustrator to convert DXF to SVG. Another option is to to use a free online converter like Convertio.
Getting the DXF file in the DWG format (current and older versions) can be done with a trial version of AutoDWG DWG DXF Converter 500. You can only use this software for 15 days and on a single file at once.
The eDrawings Viewer program mentioned above can save an open DXF file to a variety of formats like EDRW, ZIP, EXE, HTM, BMP, TIF, JPG, and PNG.
To convert the DXF file to PDF, one option is to upload it to DXFconverter.org and choose the PDF option. That website also supports saving the DXF file to JPG, TIFF, PNG, and SVG.
Bear File Converter might be useful if you want the DXF file to be in the STL file format.
dxf2gcode can save a DXF file to the G-CODE for Linux CNC format with the NGC file extension.
To use the text content of the DXF file with Microsoft Excel or some other spreadsheet software, you can convert the file to CSV with MyGeodata Converter.
One of the DXF viewers above might be able to convert the file to a different format as well, like to an Adobe Illustrator file (.AI).
More Information on the DXF Format
Since the DXF format was released in 1982, there have been several changes to its specifications, which is why you might have one DXF file in binary format and another in ASCII. You can see a PDF of the specifications on AutoCAD's website.
Recent versions of AutoCAD support both ASCII and binary DXF files. However, if you happen to be running Release 10 (which has been available since 1988, so it's unlikely), you can only work with ASCII DXF files.
A typical DXF file is organized, in order, with a HEADER, CLASSES, TABLES, BLOCKS, ENTITIES, OBJECTS, THUMBNAILIMAGE and END OF FILE section. You can read all the details about each section in the PDF linked above.
Scan2CAD and myDXF are a couple websites where you can get free DXF files.
Filename extension | .dxf |
---|---|
Internet media type | image/vnd.dxf |
Developed by | Autodesk |
Initial release | December 1982; 36 years ago |
Latest release | |
Type of format | CAD data exchange |
AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a CAD data file format developed by Autodesk[2] for enabling data interoperability between AutoCAD and other programs.
DXF was originally introduced in December 1982 as part of AutoCAD 1.0, and was intended to provide an exact representation of the data in the AutoCAD native file format, DWG (Drawing), for which Autodesk for many years did not publish specifications. Because of this, correct imports of DXF files have been difficult. Autodesk now publishes the DXF specifications as a PDF[1] on its website.
Versions of AutoCAD from Release 10 (October 1988) and up support both ASCII and binary forms of DXF. Earlier versions support only ASCII.
As AutoCAD has become more powerful, supporting more complex object types, DXF has become less useful. Certain object types, including ACIS solids and regions, are not documented. Other object types, including AutoCAD 2006's dynamic blocks, and all of the objects specific to the vertical market versions of AutoCAD, are partially documented, but not well enough to allow other developers to support them. For these reasons many CAD applications use the DWG format which can be licensed from Autodesk or non-natively from the Open Design Alliance.
DXF coordinates are always without dimensions so that the reader or user needs to know the drawing unit or has to extract it from the textual comments in the sheets.
File structure[edit]
ASCII versions of DXF can be read with any text editor. The basic organization of a DXF file is as follows:[3]
- HEADER section – General information about the drawing. Each parameter has a variable name and an associated value.
- CLASSES section – Holds the information for application-defined classes whose instances appear in the BLOCKS, ENTITIES, and OBJECTS sections of the database. Generally does not provide sufficient information to allow interoperability with other programs.
- TABLES section – This section contains definitions of named items.
- Application ID (APPID) table
- Block Record (BLOCK_RECORD) table
- Dimension Style (DIMSTYLE) table
- Layer (LAYER) table
- Linetype (LTYPE) table
- Text style (STYLE) table
- User Coordinate System (UCS) table
- View (VIEW) table
- Viewport configuration (VPORT) table
- BLOCKS section – This section contains Block Definition entities describing the entities comprising each Block in the drawing.
- ENTITIES section – This section contains the drawing entities, including any Block References.
- OBJECTS section – Contains the data that apply to nongraphical objects, used by AutoLISP and ObjectARX applications.
- THUMBNAILIMAGE section – Contains the preview image for the DXF file.
- END OF FILE
The data format of a DXF is called a 'tagged data' format which 'means that each data element in the file is preceded by an integer number that is called a group code. A group code's value indicates what type of data element follows. This value also indicates the meaning of a data element for a given object (or record) type. Virtually all user-specified information in a drawing file can be represented in DXF format.'[4]
See also[edit]
- .dwg (DWG)
- Design Web Format (DWF)
- QCad, an open source CAD application that uses the DXF file format internally and to save and import files
- LibreCAD, a version of QCAD Community Edition ported to Qt4
- Open Design Alliance (originally called OpenDWG)
- ShareCAD, a free online CAD viewer that supports DXF, among other formats
References[edit]
- ^ abDXF specifications(PDF)
- ^FAQS.org
- ^DXF File Structure
- ^'Chapter 1 -- DXF Format' Autodesk.com
External links[edit]
- DXF Reference from Autodesk Developer Network. Menu of documentation for chronological versions of DXF back to 1994.
- AutoCAD DXF Reference (from Release 14, 1998) (PDF version from 2012)
- AutoCAD DXF File Format Summary.
- Paul Bourke (March 1990). 'Minimum Requirements for Creating a DXF File of a 3D Model'.
- AutoDesk Online DXF File Viewer.
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