
It was constantly in a race to duplicate the viewing functionality of new releases of AutoCAD and Inventor.
History of autodesk flame code#
Despite having the file formats in common, the Volo View code base was separate from AutoCAD and Inventor. So Volo View was updated to read DWG, DXF, DWF, and IDW files. The strategy was to make Volo View the viewer for all Autodesk products. Autodesk Inventor became popular and its customer base also needed a viewer.
History of autodesk flame free#
A free version existed, Volo View Express, and one that was sold - Volo View.Īs Volo View evolved, so did other Autodesk design products. So Volo View was created by starting with the code base used for the Autodesk Actrix product line. The architecture of Autodesk View could not load DWF files as quickly as WHIP!. Although WHIP! had a rich API, its architecture could never provide the measurement capability of Autodesk View. The decision was made to combine the two products to reduce costs and provide customers with a single viewer that could meet both needs. So now Autodesk had two different viewers, Autodesk View and WHIP!, with two separate teams maintaining two separate code bases. DWF files were used like JPG files, but users could pan and zoom for additional detail. The DWFOut command first appeared as an add-on in the Autodesk Internet Publishing Kit for AutoCAD R13. Thus the Netscape Navigator Plug-in inherited the WHIP! name from its AutoCAD predecessor.
History of autodesk flame driver#
The easiest way to create such a file was to have the WHIP ADI video driver for AutoCAD R13 dump its display list to a file. The format featured file compression and tessellated (ready to draw) geometry. So Brian Mathews invented the DWF format. Anything complicated like reading a DWG would be too large. With this in mind, the plug-in needed to be simple. This made it impractical for Netscape Navigator Plug-ins to be larger than a megabyte. Bandwidth was such that 2400 baud modems were still the rage. With the internet boon in 1995, Autodesk customers wanted to share designs on the web. Autodesk View had its own code base (collection of source files modified by programmers to create a product) that was originally developed by the Sirlin Group. As such, DWG reading functionality was not cleanly separable (as it exists in Real DWG today) from AutoCAD. As an operating system on what we would consider today as primitive hardware, CPU cycles were at a premium. You recall DOS - the operating system with the 640K limitation.

Back in the days of R12, AutoCAD ran on DOS.

The original AutoCAD drawing (DWG) viewer was Autodesk View. Over the years, the Autodesk viewing strategy has constantly been adapted to meet customer needs. Since this is a historic day, how about a little Autodesk history? Autodesk DWG TrueView represents another chapter in the Autodesk history of viewing design data.
