Free (as in beer) DWG Viewers

[phealy_lssi]

Happy Thursday.

My IT team is trying to evaluate DWG viewers to free up some licenses of AutoCAD for only those who need the editor capabilities. We're having some issues with Autodesk's offering in DWG TrueView, mainly that it seems to be held together with duct tape and wishes, and it doesn't play nicely with Solidworks PDM. We also have eDrawings which handles most of these DWGs just fine, but sometimes they print out with black bars on the drawing, almost like it was redacted with a Sharpie.

Has your organization used any alternatives to TrueView/eDrawings in the past, and how have they worked for you?

[AlexLachance]

Happy Thursday.

My IT team is trying to evaluate DWG viewers to free up some licenses of AutoCAD for only those who need the editor capabilities. We're having some issues with Autodesk's offering in DWG TrueView, mainly that it seems to be held together with duct tape and wishes, and it doesn't play nicely with Solidworks PDM. We also have eDrawings which handles most of these DWGs just fine, but sometimes they print out with black bars on the drawing, almost like it was redacted with a Sharpie.

Has your organization used any alternatives to TrueView/eDrawings in the past, and how have they worked for you?

We use NanoCAD. I've read some use LibreCAD too, but that's only to view 2D files.

Our organization actually bought licences for the shop floors to use as viewers because we didn't find eDrawing to be reliable enough.

[bnemec]

We used to use Volo View Express to use the old dwg files for parts/assemblies that had yet to be modeled up in 3D (small percentage). It worked, I don't know enough about it to say it's good or bad.