CompuServe Messages

>> I'd love to know the least little bit about the format of DWG files. Several companies have deciphered the format. Is anyone talking about it? Any clues would be appreciated… << Being from one of those companies, I'd be happy to talk about it. The DWG format mostly parallels the DXF, in that there is a header section, tables section, blocks, and entities. In general, you can take a dwg file, convert it to dxf, and convert it back to dwg without losing any information. That means that both formats contains the same information, just in vastly different formats. DWG is a binary compressed file. The specific implementation varies from one release of Autocad to the next, and can get quite hairy. There are CRC checksums throughout the file for error checking, and some information is stored twice for redundency. If you want to access DWG files directly, you would be better off using a 3rd party library. My company produces such a library, called the CAD++ ENGINE, which is available for DOS, Windows, and Unix platforms. Sirlin can be reached at 603-437-0727. –Jonathan.