Autodesk NavisWorks Freedom 2009

The free viewer Autodesk NavisWorks Freedom 2009 is available now. It is a great 3D viewer and with great performance on even very large BIM models created with AutoCAD, Revit or several other applications.

A good news is the support for 3D DWF files as they can be created without the need to have any of the full versions of NavisWorks and if you have tried with a really large model in Autodesk Design Review you will probably find that Freedom handles it much better.

www.autodesk.com/navisworksfreedom

When running the downloaded exe file Autodesk_NavisWorks_Freedom_2009_English_Win_32bit.exe (126MB) it says it will install in C:\Autodesk\NavisWorks Freedom 2009 but what it actually does it to extract all files required to run the setup to that folder and then the real install starts.

New Features

Autodesk NavisWorks Freedom 2009 contains a number of key enhancements for this release.

Interface Enhancements

• .NET GUI Modernization - Up-to-date look and feel including new icons, improved control bar docking and tabbed control bars.

• The Selection Tree Control Bar - Shows the internal structure of the loaded NWD, allowing direct navigation through the tree list to required elements in the project.

• The Properties Control Bar - Shows all properties of a selected geometry item.

• TimeLiner Playback - Abitlity to play back a TimeLiner sequence.

• Animation Playback - Ability to play back viewpoint and object animation.

• New Editor for Global Options. - A change from complex tabs to a logical tree structure, making finding options much simpler. Also making global options sharable across multiple PCs through import and export.

• Viewable Comments - Ability to view comments recorded in NWD files.

Display Enhancements

• 3D Text Support - The visualization of 3D text brought into other NavisWorks products from AutoCAD and MicroStation, and exported in the NWD.

• Parametric Support - Any parametric data brought into other NavisWorks products and exported in the NWD will be displayed in Freedom. This data increases cylinder accuracy, and dramatically reduces the memory footprint to load and display them.

Operating System Support

• Microsoft Vista Support - Full support for Microsoft's latest operating system.

• 64-bit Support - Support for 64-bit versions of both XP and Vista.

File Formats

• Autodesk DWF support - Freedom is now capable of reading and displaying Autodesk’s DWF Design Review format. (comment by me: only DWF files with 3D content as this is a 3D viewer)

For more about NavisWorks see this previous post.