AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a

CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...

data file format developed by

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartere ...

for enabling data interoperability between

AutoCAD AutoCAD is a commercial computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting software application. Developed and marketed by Autodesk, AutoCAD was first released in December 1982 as a desktop app running on microcomputers with internal graphics controllers. ...

and other programs. DXF was 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 many years, Autodesk did not publish specifications, making correct imports of DXF files difficult. Autodesk now publishes th
DXF specifications online
Versions of AutoCAD from Release 10 (October 1988) and up support both

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...

and

binary Binary may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1) * Binary function, a function that takes two arguments * Binary operation, a mathematical operation that ta ...

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 A vertical market is a market in which vendors offer goods and services ''specific'' to an industry, trade, profession, or other group of customers with specialized needs. A horizontal market is a market in which a product or service meets a ...

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 Open Design Alliance is a nonprofit organization creating software development kits (SDKs) for engineering applications. ODA offers interoperability tools for CAD, BIM, and Mechanical industries including .dwg, .dxf, .dgn, Autodesk Revit, Autode ...

. 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

ASCII versions of DXF can be read with any

text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be ...

. The basic organization of a DXF file is as follows: ; section : General information about the drawing. Each parameter has a variable name and an associated value. ; section : Holds the information for application-defined classes whose instances appear in the , , and sections of the database. Generally does not provide sufficient information to allow interoperability with other programs. ; section : This section contains definitions of named items. # Application ID () table # Block Record () table # Dimension Style () table # Layer () table # Linetype () table # Text style () table # User Coordinate System () table # View () table # Viewport configuration () table ; section : This section contains Block Definition entities describing the entities comprising each Block in the drawing. ; section : This section contains the drawing entities, including any Block References. ; section : Contains the data that apply to nongraphical objects, used by

AutoLISP AutoLISP is a dialect of the programming language Lisp built specifically for use with the full version of AutoCAD and its derivatives, which include ''AutoCAD Map 3D'', ''AutoCAD Architecture'' and ''AutoCAD Mechanical''. Neither the application ...

, and

ObjectARX ObjectARX (AutoCAD Runtime eXtension) is an API for customizing and extending AutoCAD. The ObjectARX SDK is published by Autodesk and freely available under license from Autodesk. The ObjectARX SDK consists primarily of C++ headers and libraries th ...

applications. ; section : Contains the preview image for the DXF 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.""Chapter 1 -- DXF Format
Autodesk.com
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References

External links

AutoCAD DXF Reference (from Release 14, 1998)PDF version from 2012

AutoDesk Online DXF File Viewer
{{Authority control 1982 introductions

DXF AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a CAD data file format developed by Autodesk for enabling data interoperability between AutoCAD and other programs. DXF was introduced in December 1982 as part of AutoCA ...

Autodesk products

File structure

See also

References

External links