What is Drawing Web Format (DWF)?

The Drawing Web Format was developed because widely accepted 2D vector file standards did not address the needs of Internet aware applications. In addition, commercial formats were too closely tied to specific proprietary data structures to support the exchange of illustrations among systems.

DWF is a file format for the standardized description of 2D, vector-based drawings and illustrations. Specifically, the Drawing Web Format was developed to support the following applications:

• Archival of drawings in an openly accessible and application-independent format.
• Transmission of drawings over a variety of mediums, especially the Internet's World Wide Web.
• Open exchange of drawings between DWF generating applications and DWF viewing applications.
• Enable users of illustration applications to self-publish their work on the World Wide Web and add functionality to their drawings by embedding hyperlinks, universal resource locators (URLs).

The DWF file format offers developers many new features for applications.

Application independence—It provides application independence. Because DWF specifies a generalized 2D vector format rather than using the data structure details of a specific application, DWF has been designed to accommodate the pictorial output available from a wide variety of commercial applications that generate 2D illustrations.

Compatibility—DWF provides a common syntax for the exchange of 2D illustrations between applications that generate drawings and viewing applications that read .dwf files. .dwf files are compatible with future illustration applications through the use of an extensible syntax.

Simplicity—DWF provides simplicity through the use of a flexible syntax that requires minimal information for simple cases while allowing a graceful escalation of information required for more complex drawing descriptions. The format persuades DWF generating applications to tessellate their geometry into a form that is simple for viewing applications to read.

Stability—DWF remains relatively unchanged over time because it is application independent and has extensibility built in. Also, it is less likely to require changes as it addresses the requirements of most existing commercial systems.

Many Supported Features—Fully supported features include lines, polylines, polygons, polytriangles, markers, images, circles, arcs, ellipses, Bézier curves, text, visibility, Gouraud shading, texture mapping, 31-bit data precision, layer control, view control, clip regions, variable transparency, and international character sets.

Extensibility—DWF provides extensibility through the use of syntax extension mechanisms built into the specification and through a set of rules for .dwf file reading programs that allow for unforeseen syntax extensions. For example, new operations can be compatibly added to a .dwf file that will be gracefully ignored by older DWF reading applications.

Compact size—DWF is designed to provide either a compact binary or readable ASCII representation of illustrations. Especially critical for Internet transmission, DWF includes a data compression mechanism that minimizes duplication of geometric information.

Embedding mechanism—DWF includes a mechanism for the attachment of any kind of data (with a link or an embed operation) to the format. One possible use for this is to allow users to drag and drop illustrations from a Web browser into any application. Rather than "dropping" DWF data, an embedded or linked file format native to the target application is dropped as instructed by the DWF format.

URL hyperlink support—DWF adds World Wide Web support and features to the drawings it describes. One of these features is the ability to attach Internet URL (universal resource locator) hyperlinks to any object so that by selecting an object in a drawing, a user can jump to a more detailed view of the drawing, to a related drawing, or to any other Internet information (text, sound, video, and so forth).