Does anybody know if there is a way (or if it's even possible) to use this to create previews for Autocad (DWG, DWF) files? Lots of sites have CAD blocks for download, and they're able to have previews created on upload. Not sure which module would allow that, but this seems reasonable...

Comments

ludo1960’s picture

I'm no expert, but I think you will find that previews of autocad files will be in PDF format

ctalley5’s picture

Hmm... well if that's true, i guess what is happening is that when an autocad file is uploaded, either an image or PDF is automatically generated, instead of uploading both a file AND image/PDF.

So the question would be, what kind of module would be able to generate something like that?

ludo1960’s picture

I don't of any module that will do that. I suspect the PDF is generated by Autocad itself and uploaded at the same time as the DWG/DXF file to a CCK content type

drewish’s picture

Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

for this to work you'd need to create an imageapi tookit that can read images from autocad files. as far as the imagecache module goes it's out of scope and won't be fixed.

dbt102’s picture

Issue summary: View changes

Autocad (http://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/autocad-for-mac) uses the .dwg file type when using the application software. The .dwg files can be saved off as .dwf files for internet viewing (viewing thru a web browser). Acad used to promote its .dwf viewer app pretty aggressively, and a quick google search for .dwf viewer shows there are such viewers from multiple sources at this point. Now, I think that Autocad is more interested in getting you to use their Cloud Services for sharing drawings (http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&id=18520222). So .dwf files can be uploaded and viewed from there.

Anyhow, the .dwf viewer was a plugin that was free from auto cad. And, image previews were created by auto cad whenever the cad .dwg is saved. I'm thinking it is just a .png file. So, I'm thinking the .dwf file itself can be previewed by those using the plug-in directly from the .dwf file itself. For those who do not have the plugin installed, you'd have to load up the .png file also (or whatever filetype it is) for previewing. I don't recall it being a .pdf, although yow can save off .dwgs as .pdfs.