Looking for freeware or opensource CAD that can read and edit .dwg [closed]

Looking for freeware or opensource CAD that can read and edit .dwg [closed]

We have an engineer who needs CAD software which can read and edit .dwg files (preferably that runs on Windows but I could probably argue for a *nix box if needed). Before buying a commercial license I'd like to see, what if any, freeware or opensource CAD software exists. I've read through this post but the software here all specifies a license for personal use only. Everything I have found up to this point is a .dwg viewer only, is licensed for non-commercial purposes, or is paid software (with the possible exception of FelixCAD which I'm still looking into).

Asked by: Guest | Views: 306

Total answers/comments: 2

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Guest [Entry]

"New answer

DraftSight, free for individuals, reviewed here as :

DraftSight is a proprietary freeware 2D computer-aided design (CAD)
software application. The product was developed by Dassault Systèmes
and lets users create, edit and view DWG and AutoCAD DXF files.

DraftSight for Windows was released in February 2011 and was
downloaded more than 1.8 million times as of December 2011.

Languages available include English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional
Chinese, Czech, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean,
Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish and Russian.

Old answer (read comments first)

DoubleCAD XT

DoubleCAD XT™ is an AutoCAD LT
work-alike. But free.

A9CAD

A9CAD is a general purpose
two-dimensional CAD program. It
supports industry standard DWG & DXF
drawing formats.

HYCAD

HYCAD is a useful and general purpose
CAD program, green and small but
powerful. HYCAD can export
multiple format files, such as dwg dxf
eps bmp jpg png etc. it is easy to
learn and much like AutoCAD."

Guest [Entry]

"I don't think you'll so easily find an open source one, which handles .dwg. For starters, .dwg is not open source (there have been some initiatives to make part of it public, but it never lived on fully).

As far as CAD goes on *nix boxes, in general, it was never spread as on Win ones, starting from software, up to drivers for specific used graphic cards, and so on ...

However, what you could do, if you're interested in writing a interface to a already existing format, is check out openNURBS. It is a Rhino community project (that has already taken some development), and if I understand correctly they provide an acess to Rhino's format (a NURBS modeling application, which is very respected in its own domains of application).

But this is just a sidenote."