AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a CAD data file format, developed by Autodesk as their solution for enabling data interoperability between AutoCAD and other programs. A filename extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file applied to show its format. ... Autodesk, Inc. ... CAD is a TLA that may stand for: Cadiz Railroad (AAR reporting mark CAD) Canadian dollar – ISO 4217-code Capital Adequacy Directive Card Acceptance Device Children of the Anachronistic Dynasty Computer-aided design Computer-aided detection (medical) Computer-aided diagnosis (medical) Computer-assisted dispatch Computer-assisted drafting Coronary artery disease... “CAD” redirects here. ... A file format is a particular way to encode information for storage in a computer file. ... Autodesk, Inc. ... CAD data exchange involves a number of software technologies and methods to translate data from one Computer-aided design system to another CAD file format. ... AutoCAD is a suite of CAD software products for 2- and 3-dimensional design and drafting, developed and sold by Autodesk, Inc. ...

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 did not — and, as of 2007, does not — publish specifications. Autodesk currently publishes specifications on its website for versions of DXF dating from AutoCAD Release 13 (November 1994) to AutoCAD 2008 (March 2007). DWG (pronounced drawing) is the default extension used by Autodesk for its AutoCAD drawing files in MS-DOS and Windows. ...

Versions of AutoCAD from Release 10 (October 1988) and up support both ASCII and binary forms of DXF. Earlier versions support only the ASCII form. Image:ASCII fullsvg There are 95 printable ASCII characters, numbered 32 to 126. ... A Hexdump of a JPEG image. ...

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 at a sufficient level to allow other developers to support them. For other uses, see ACIS (disambiguation). ...

Almost all significant commercial application software developers, including all of Autodesk's competitors, choose to support DWG as their primary format for AutoCAD data interoperability, using libraries from the Open Design Alliance — a non-profit industry consortium which has reverse-engineered the DWG file format. The Open Design Alliance is an alliance of members that seeks to develop libraries for standard CAD formats. ...

File structure

ASCII versions of DXF can be read with a text-editor. The basic organization of a DXF file is as follows:

• 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 Recod (BLOCK_RECORD) table

Dimension Style (DIMSTYPE) 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

See also

• DWF
• DWG
• Autodesk
• AutoCAD
• CAD
• QCad

// Autodesk® DWF™ (Design Web Format) DWF (Design Web Format) is an open, secure file format developed by Autodesk for the efficient distribution and communication of rich design data to anyone who needs to view, review, or print design files. ... DWG (pronounced drawing) is the default extension used by Autodesk for its AutoCAD drawing files in MS-DOS and Windows. ... Autodesk, Inc. ... AutoCAD is a suite of CAD software products for 2- and 3-dimensional design and drafting, developed and sold by Autodesk, Inc. ... CAD is a TLA that may stand for: Cadiz Railroad (AAR reporting mark CAD) Canadian dollar – ISO 4217-code Capital Adequacy Directive Card Acceptance Device Children of the Anachronistic Dynasty Computer-aided design Computer-aided detection (medical) Computer-aided diagnosis (medical) Computer-assisted dispatch Computer-assisted drafting Coronary artery disease... QCad is a computer-aided design (CAD) software package for 2D design and drafting. ...

External links

• DXF Specifications - Autodesk documentation on versions of DXF from Release 13 to current.
• Open Design Alliance - Non-profit industry consortium which provides program libraries to read and write DWG and DXF files.
• Convert PDF to DWG and DXF format
• Convert PDF, PostScript, WMF or EMF to DXF
• Open Source software - Read, write, and draw to DXF files, export to image, print, zoom, pan