AutoCADder

In February (AutoCAD speaks Microstationish) I have complained about the limited support of the DGN file format in AutoCAD 2008 (V8 only). Autodesk has probably heared that also from other users. Both DGN V8 and the older DGN V7 Microstation formats will be probably supported in the new AutoCAD 2009.
It is good that the file format compatibility problems are being solved by CAD software vendors.

Labels: AutoCAD 2009, DGN

Autodesk Design Review is in the first place a viewing and markup tool for DWF, DWFx and DWG files. But with the DGN plugin, you can simply use it to view also DGN v8 files. We have recently received a bunch of DGN files for a project - this tool allows us to measure basic dimensions before we further process or convert such files.

When using Design Review for DGN files, don't forget to open the DGN files by Import (not by Open), or just drag and drop them to Design Review. You probably won't be able to open some DGN files as Design Review supports only the curent version of DGN files - version 8.

Don't forget - both the Design Review 2008 and the DGN plugin are free.

Labels: Design Review, DGN, DWF

DGN-to-DWG and DWG-to-DGN converters were always popular CAD utilities, especially in countries where Microstation was widely used. Exchanging data was always painful process as both applications has used different file formats - DGN (Microstation) and DWG (AutoCAD).

Then Microstation learned AutoCADdish and allowed to read/write DWG files - well writing DWGs was always less than perfect but anyway. At least you could send your DWG files to your Microstation partner and he was able to use it. In Autodesk world, this capability was limited to AutoCAD Map only.

A couple of months ago, Autodesk came with the DGN Translator "technology preview" on labs.autodesk.com (for AutoCAD 2007). And now, reading/writing DGN files is supported directly in the AutoCAD core - and so in all AutoCAD-based applications (also in LT2008). You can import and export DGN files, or even attach them (like xref) with DGNATTACH and clip them with DGNCLIP. Don't forget that only DGN V8 (and XM) format files are supported (unlike in Map) - and there are still lots of older (V7) DGN files circulating around.

So here it is - AutoCAD 2008 - your new DGN/DWG convertor...

Labels: AutoCAD 2008, DGN, DWG, Microstation