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Is there any field exploding with more new products than that of Web applications? And once you install them, how do you keep them running? This newsletter, prepared by Network World columnist Mark Gibbs, will keep you current on new products and new features, as well as provide advice on getting the most out of your apps.

Mark Gibbs

AfterCAD Insite, showing the client what you’ve got

AfterCAD Insite CAD Viewer

Web Applications Newsletter  By Mark Gibbs, Network World, 04/16/07

I’m amazed not only by how fast business processes have moved onto the Internet, but by how reliant on the 'Net those processes have become. What got me thinking about this was today’s focus: AfterCAD Insite CAD Viewer from AfterCAD Software.

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In engineering of any kind you have to make drawings, and getting these to the client quickly can make or break a business deal. We used to use blueprints and couriers, but with the advent of the ‘Net digital transfers of drawings as files started to become commonplace.

Of course, some of the file formats used resulted in transfers of tens or even hundreds of megabytes which caused all sorts of problems in their own right. These files were too big for e-mail so the client needed to use FTP to get them, and if they had a slow connection it would take forever and they needed to have either the same CAD package you used or a viewer of that format and … well, there were lots of things to slow down the transfer and make it difficult. That said it was still better than the old blueprint and courier method, just not a lot better.

AfterCAD is a huge step forward in simplifying the process. Rather than transferring the data, Insite CAD Viewer renders 2D AutoCAD or Microstation documents in your browser using AJAX. Here’s the big advantages of Insite CAD Viewer: It is compatible with Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox on both Windows and Linux platforms, and the Insite CAD Viewer requires no downloads or plugins to work.

Insite CAD Viewer allows you to zoom, pan, add comments, draw lines and shapes, and select which layers to view. For a displayed document you can also print, get the link to it, and e-mail the link using your local e-mail client. See the demo display of a house plan that demonstrates all of these features along with other demos on that same page that show 3D rendering and maps.

Insite CAD Viewer can handle documents in DWG, DXF, and DWF as well as TIFF, PNG, and JPG images and DGN formatted document support is also planned. The server side of Insite, written in ASP, works on Windows with ISS and a version for Linux running Apache will be available. There’s also an API for customization.   Continued

Mark Gibbs is a consultant, author, journalist, and columnist and now blogger: Check out Gibbsblog.

Gibbs not only pens (well, keyboards) this newsletter he also writes the weekly Backspin and Gearhead columns in Network World. We’ll spare you the rest of the bio but if you want to know more, go here.

Archives of the Network World Web Applications newsletter can be found here.

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