I just want to view a DWG!

[88engine]

Hi all. I'm sure that this question has probably been raised countless times over; I can't find any solution, so please accept my apologies in advance.

 

I have AutoCAD at work and on my desktop at home, but only True View and Design Review on my laptop. I need to work from my laptop and need to view acad dwgs; that's it, but I need the external references (xrefs) loaded within dwgs too. Other than etransmitting etc is there a way/program to simply open an acad dwg and be able to see it? Even as an uneditable entity/image or something? I just need to see it - from the .dwg file itself; no PDF or anything like that.

 

Thanks!

Michael

[steven-g]

You either need to make sure a copy of the xref is on your laptop along with the dwg and that the ref path is correct, or bind the xref to your dwg before copying it onto your laptop. Both cases mean that you are losing the concept behind the xref - which is that changes to the xref are shown in the dwg, but if it is only to have a complete dwg as a snapshot in time then it will give you that, just update your laptop copy regularly with the newest version.

[88engine]

Cheers for the reply steven-g.

 

Both of those options are not possible unfortunately. The problem I have is that I just want to be able to see the drawing, so I can do some quantity take-off while not connected to the network. Like you say all of the possibilities defeat the point of using xrefs and this is just a temporary situation in any case. I had hoped that there might have been a useful program out there that could have read the reference(s) and portrayed them in the drawing (even in a strictly read only or viewing mode only). The more I'm thinking about the more ridiculous it sounds that something would be able to read a reference that I have no link to, but I am an optimist...

 

I'm sure it would be pretty difficult to do (by having the detail stored in the dwg somehow), but there's surely a definite need for it I would say?? Just to be able to send a dwg to someone without full CAD and for them to be able to simply see the drawing for what it is. Design review or true view etc just don't meet demands of the mobile world that we live in today. I don't have time to etransmit or bind a whole rake of dwgs all of the time (nor a company laptop linked to the network, which would obviously solve my problems straight away).

[eldon]

Have you thought to try AutoCAD 360?

 

You could upload the drawing and the x-ref into the cloud, when you were at work. Then at home you could view them.

[88engine]

Yeah that's the best option that I have found so far. I've got 360 open at the moment actually (without the xrefs of course haha). It'll be easier to do a batch upload rather than binding everything into the dwgs; although I'm not struck on the interface of 360 thus far.