AutoCAD DXF is a file format, developped by Autodesk, in order to facilitate AutoCAD drawings to be opened by other CAD programs.
AutoCAD's native file format is DWG (Drawing) and couldn't be opened by other CAD programs. Therefor the DXF was introduced (Drawing exchange format) as standard ASCII text files to store the vector data of the drawing.
File structure
Since the file contains plain ASCII it can be read with any text-editor. The basic organization of an AutoCAD DXF file is as follows:
- HEADER section - General information about the drawing. Each parameter has a variable name and an associated value.
- TABLES section - This section contains definitions of named items.
- Linetype (LTYPE) table
- Layer table
- Text style (STYLE) table
- View table
- User Coordinate System (UCS) table
- Viewport configuration (VPORT) table
- BLOCKS section - This section contains Block Definition entities describing the entities comprising each Block in the drawing.
- ENTITIES section - This section contains the drawing entities, including any Block References.
- END OF FILE
External links
