Downloading and starting DraftSight

The DWG file format is the most used Computer Aided Design (CAD) format. It is used in all areas of technical drawings. Another drawing file format is DXF, mainly used for communication between CAD programs. There are several programs that work with DWG and DXF files, with similar commands and work processes, with DraftSight being among them.

Dassault Systèmes (www.3ds.com), one of the two major CAD companies in the world, licenses the ARES Commander software from Graebert GmbH (www.graebert.com) and uses it as the CAD engine. The first version was released in February 2011. Currently there are versions for Windows 32-bit, Windows 64-bit (XP, Vista, and 7), Mac OS X, and several Linux operating systems (Fedora, Suze, Mandriva, or Ubuntu).

Actually, there are 15 languages available, including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese (traditional and simplified), and Russian. DraftSight is free for any personal or commercial application.

DraftSight can be downloaded from www.draftsight.com, selecting the proper operating system. The executable file is around 100 MB and installs very fast. It does not prompt for the language selection, thus installing the local language, but this can be changed after starting DraftSight.

After installation, DraftSight can be initiated by double-clicking the DraftSight desktop icon or by accessing the Windows Start menu and navigating to All Programs | DassaultSystemes | DraftSight.