Drawing Interchange Format (DXF)

DXF (Drawing Interchange Format) was first introduced by AutoDesk AutoCAD, and is one of the most widely used CAD/CAM/CAE applications in the world. DXF is very popular and is supported by most 3D formats on PC platforms.

A DXF file is an ASCII file containing 2D and 3D components representing a drawing. Those components are known as Entities. The DXF file can represent almost any CAD drawing using those entities, and can connect a group of entities together (such as windows, doors, etc.) and use them later in the file. The DXF file has seen many changes through the years, from version 2.6 to the latest release version 14. However, the latest release of AutoCAD still manages to open files created with any of the earlier versions.

LEADTOOLS supports all current variations of the DXF format (versions 2.6, 6,  9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15(2000), 18( 2004)).

You can load any of the DXF files as either vector images or raster images. Users can load a DXF file, and save it to any of the file formats supported by LEADTOOLS.

This file format is not supported in the non-vector toolkits. Read support and write support for this format are provided in the LEADTOOLS Vector Imaging Pro toolkit and are unlocked when the Vector features are unlocked.

The file constants associated with this file format are:

Constant

Read Support

Write Support

Description

FILE_DXF

Yes

Yes

[58] AutoDesk AutoCAD ASCII format Release 12.

FILE_DXF_R12

Yes

Yes

Same as FILE_DXF

FILE_DXF_R13

Yes

Yes

[290] AutoDesk AutoCAD ASCII format Release 13.

When DXF files are rasterized, they are 24 BPP. You can read and write vector DXF files at 8 BPP.

 

The following table indicates which objects LEAD can load and which objects it can save:

Object:

Load:

Save:

Arc

Supported

Supported

Attdef

Supported

Not Supported

Attrib

Supported

Not Supported

Circle

Supported

Supported

Clone

Supported

Supported

Ellipse

Supported

Supported

Elliptical Arc

Supported

Not Supported

Gradient

Supported

Not Supported

Insert

Supported

Not Supported

Leader

Supported

Not Supported

Lines

Supported

Supported

LWPolyline

Supported

Not Supported

MText

Supported

Supported

Point

Supported

Supported

Polygons

Supported

Supported

PolyLine

Supported

Supported

Raster

Supported

Supported (DXF13)

Region

Supported

Not Supported

SeqEnd

Not Supported

Not Supported

Simple Ray Object

Supported

Not Supported

Simple Construction Line

Supported

Not Supported

Simple Multi-Line

Supported

Not Supported

Solid

Supported

Not Supported

Spline

Supported

Not Supported

Table

Supported

Not Supported

Text

Supported

Supported

Tolerance

Supported

Not Supported

Vertex

Supported

Supported

Wipeout

Supported

Not Supported

WPolyLine

Supported

Not Supported

3DFace

Supported

Supported

3D Solid

Not Supported

Not Supported

 

Required DLL: LFDXF. For a listing of the exact DLLs needed, based on the toolkit version, refer to Files To Be Included With Your Application.

NOTE: This format does not support LEAD's redirected IO feature, therefore it cannot be used with L_LoadBitmapMemory, L_SaveBitmapMemory, or L_FeedLoad.

Related Formats: CGM - Computer Graphics Metafile, CMX - Corel Presentation Exchange Format, DGN - Intergraph Format, DRW - Micrografx Designer DRaWing, DWF - DWF Format, DWG - DWG FormatEMF - Windows Metafile Formats, GBR - Gerber Format, PCL - Printer Command Language Format, PCT - Macintosh Pict Format, PDF - Portable Document Format, PLT - PLT / HPGL Format, PS - PostScript Document Format, RTF - Rich Text Format, SHP - ESRI Shape Format, SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics Format, VEC - LEADTOOLS Vector Dump Format, VPG - WordPerfect Vector Format, WMF - Windows Metafile Formats, NAP - North American Presentation Layer Protocol Syntax (NAPLPS), WMZ - Compressed Windows Metafile Format, MIF - MapInfo Interchange File Format, E00 - ArcInfo Interchange File Format