Do you have any experience with CAD viewers?

We need something to view CATIA v 4.2 and Unigraphics NX2.

Free is great, but we are wasting 4 or more hours of engineering time per week converting these files to ACAD and/or pdfs just for doc control purposes, so we can easily justify spending some significant money on a good viewer.

Has anyone in the community already solved this?

Do you have any experience with CAD viewers?

We need something to view CATIA v 4.2 and Unigraphics NX2.

Free is great, but we are wasting 4 or more hours of engineering time per week converting these files to ACAD and/or pdfs just for doc control purposes, so we can easily justify spending some significant money on a good viewer.

Has anyone in the community already solved this?

Just a few clarifications:

Do folks need to mark these drawings as well as merely view them
(redline, suggestions for change, notes?)
Do you want function of enlarge, crop, print?There are some electronic document management software programs around which allow view, crop, enlarge, shrink, redline [in overlays], and print of multiple drawing file formats without having the native file format resident on the viewing computer. These programs have multiple features which add to the ease of document and configuration management.

I do not publicly announce brands of software since things change almost weekly and a brand I might have recommended last year no longer is premier, having been outstripped by competitors.

Here's a post I wrote about two years ago to a similar query
(http://elsmar.com/Forums/showpost.php?p=60449&postcount=15)
Documents can stay in native format.
Here's an intro to one of my presentations on the topic:
Document Management Software
Background:
An organization wants to improve efficiency of document management by “grafting” a program over current legacy files and all newly-created files which will provide the following minimum benefits:

Ease of Search & Retrieval (on different fields/characteristics)
Ensure only the most recent revision is available on standard Search menu
Automate the procedure of notifying pertinent parties a document is ready for redlining
Maintain an audit trail for the status of documents (released or waiting for checking/approval [and by whom])
Allow “full preview” of documents without opening native programs – i.e. AutoCAD documents can be viewed without latest revision of AutoCAD being resident on user’s computer.
Permit “group printing” of documents, regardless of native file format.
Maintain up to 30 security levels on any document, determining whether user has authority to create, modify, redline, view, print, copy, etc.How do they work?
The primary feature of Document Control Software is a relational database which manipulates very small files called “metatags”, which relate to certain attributes of documents. Basic attributes are file name, revision level, author, topic, key words, type of file format, etc. which are used for field headings in the database.

By querying the database, a user retrieves a “menu” of documents which meet the search criteria. Self-contained viewing software permits a user to view and print documents, regardless of the native file format. The views can be scrolled, zoomed, and cropped (i.e. user can print an enlarged detail of a document.)

Users who have redline authority can markup documents without invoking the native file program (the redlines are saved as “overlays” in separate files without changing the original document.)

Users who have checking/approval/redline authority can be automatically notified via email when a document is ready for their review. The program will track when and whether the review is completed and maintain an audit trail for “real time” status reports on any or all documents in the review process.

By keying on the attribute “Revision level”, the program can ensure only the most recent, authorized revision is available to most users, reserving authority to view “superseded” documents to special categories of users.

An important consideration in grafting legacy documents into the new system is choosing fields pertinent to the organization. Many documents, like autocad and word documents have features which provide automatic tags (create date, author, department, etc.) [click on "properties" under File in a Word document to get an idea of already available fields.]

The problem is most users write documents which still show "valued customer" as the author because they have never explored the Properties feature.

An expense to consider is going back into each legacy document and adding the meta tags which allow for sorting and retrieval.

I hope this helps - there are many consultants like me who would come in and give your organization background on choosing the best brand for your organization. Caution is "Are they truly independent or do they have bias toward one brand?"

Here's a sample of what can be found with a simple google search
File Formats Supported

Image Files
TIFF Images
CALS Raster
EDMICS
Intergraph CIT
Run length
Color (.jpg, .tif, gif, bmp)
CAD files
AutoCAD (.dwg, .dxf, .dwf)
Plot (.plt, .hpgl)
Intergraph (.dgn)
Others
Office Files
MSWord (.doc)
Excel (.xls)
Powerpoint (.ppt)
Text (.txt)
Acrobat (.pdf)
HTML
Word Perfect

Our products support MS Access, MS SQL Server, and XML databases, provide solutions for Internet, intranet and desktop environments, and generate portable databases or document sets for a variety of distribution options.


Seems to me your organization might want to rethink its document management solutions. Choices or options will depend on

number of users (in-house, suppliers, customers),
number of document creators [and approvers],
number of legacy documents,
number of new or revised documents per week,
budget of time and money to implement solution.

Here's a sample of what can be found with a simple google search

Seems to me your organization might want to rethink its document management solutions. Choices or options will depend on

number of users (in-house, suppliers, customers),
number of document creators [and approvers],
number of legacy documents,
number of new or revised documents per week,
budget of time and money to implement solution.

Wes

Our needs are really simple, view/print is all we need.

We googled and found hundreds of viewers, we're not afraid to spend some buck$ for a system, I just hoped someone here could help speed the search.

I hold the opnions of this group in high regard and would likely buy what was recomended here....

Marc - perhaps this could be a new revenue stream for you "Cove Recommended Software"!

Thanks

Do you have any experience with CAD viewers?

We need something to view CATIA v 4.2 and Unigraphics NX2.

Free is great, but we are wasting 4 or more hours of engineering time per week converting these files to ACAD and/or pdfs just for doc control purposes, so we can easily justify spending some significant money on a good viewer.

Has anyone in the community already solved this?


Hi Caster,

Here are a couple of options....

Take a look at AutoVue by Cymmetry. I don't know if it supports these file formats, but it will certainly support a slew of others. I don't know the price, but I really like their program. It allows you to batch print, opens most files, including Word documents and .pdf. Free updates are issued several times per year.

Another option for Catia would be eDrawings by SolidWorks. I assume (now that is a big risk...lol) that it should support Catia since both are owned by DeSault.

I don't know much about Unigraphics.

And last, take a look at cadchat.com. This message board covers a wide range of CAD topics.

Happy hunting.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22drawing+viewer%22+CATIA&as_q=Unigraphics