AutoXchange AX2020 is designed for on-demand or high volume processing of AutoCAD DWG, DXF and DWF files. AutoXchange converts to a wide array of vector, raster and Web-ready formats. Building on our AutoXChange product first introduced in 1995, AutoXchange is available on Windows, Linux, HP-UX, AIX and Solaris.
It is the only such program available on Unix and Linux. Formats supported may differ depending on the platform. The CadXchange family consisting of five separate products depending on input formats; AutoXchange (DWG/DXF/DWF), DgnXchange(DGN), AcroXchange (PDF/AI), Hp2Xchange (HP-GL/2) and RasterXchange (bitmaps) are now merged into AutoXchange 2020.
AutoXchange has been designed to perform batch conversion and to work as part of an automated process. AutoXchange does not require extensive hard drive space or memory allocation and can be installed on any PC or laptop computer.
AutoXchange is a “command line driven” program. It is designed to be used in on-demand or high volume applications. It can be easily executed by another program or a CGI script for automated processing. If that does not work for you, a DLL-based version is available on Windows and a static library version is available on Linux and many Unix platforms.
Dynamic modification of AutoCAD drawings
The XML-based modification capabilities in AutoXchange AX2020 allows AutoCAD and CAFM professionals to dynamically modify or add objects to the drawings in the conversion process.
This is particular useful when overlaying information from databases into drawings for display or for online dynamic interaction between drawings and server side database information, please see the overview functional description of the AX2020 Interface.
AX2020 works in conjunction with the Tailor Made software extraction tool, LinkList/XML, which creates AutoXchange compatible XML files from AutoCAD DWG/DXF.
Enhanced PDF Output
AutoXchange features the most advanced PDF output of any CAD conversion tool. It supports 40 and 128-bit encryption, multiple levels of compression, password protection of PDF files, numerous levels of permission setting, advanced font support and a whole lot more.
Of course, it uses vector PDF for the highest fidelity, not raster PDF of questionable quality. AutoXchange also features greatly improved vector PostScript and Encapsulated PostScript output.
Tailor Made Software’s proprietary Feature Recognition, a standard element of AutoXchange, preserves features such as arcs, circles and ellipses instead of transliterating line segments. The result? More compact files that don’t suffer from a loss in detail. In addition, Feature Recognition speeds up conversion while preserving a file’s contents.
Multiple File Conversion
AutoXchange can perform multiple file conversion operations, including user-configurable wildcard specifications, allowing a user to convert one, a few or all of the files in a directory or directory tree.
AutoXchange can automatically create many raster output formats including JPEG, TIFF, CCITT TIFF (or TIFF Group IV), GIF and PNG files for a wide range of raster drawing needs. For web use we recommend GIF or PNG over JPEG.
JPEG may be more widely used, but it is not well suited for output of line drawings. PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is the format widely touted as the replacement for GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) files since GIF files were subject to royalties to Unisys up until June 22nd, 2004.
If your application can support them, then TIFF Group IV is the the best format for line drawings. It only supports Black and White, but it is highly compressed and large drawings with high resolution are possible while still maintaining small file size.
The raster formats supported depend on the operating system used, with some limitations on AIX and HP-UX.
Check out AutoXchange 2020
Download AX2020 from our download resources.
Evaluate the trial version in your own environment against your own systems.