A simple sample of DWF with out a viewer installed.

Just wanted to follow up from my last entry. Here is a link to a sample mapbook put on the internet using the "Freewheel" tool or what ever they end up calling it. A few words about this web page first, I created the Mapbook in DWF format from MAP R2004 a few years ago and it has Object Data attached to some of the lines. The web site itself is one of the free ones out there (POP-UP warning) that I created in a matter of minutes and I just added the DWFs and a little text using the templates provided by Tripod nothing fancy to it. I just wanted to see and show how easy it will be to use this method to get maps out to non-MAP users. Currently there are no tools to view the Object Data or switch layers on/off. Also the table width that the DWF object is on needs to be adjusted, but any good web designer can fix that. My pupose of doing it was to see how easy it would be and if it works. Judge it for yourself.

The wide world of DWF.

A lot of times there maybe a need to share a map with someone outside the office or the company that does not have AutoCAD or any other GIS software program. So what do you need to do? Well in the past you could make a PDF of the map and sent it off to them or maybe a DWF. But wait with a DWF they need the DWF Viewer installed and as we have seen they either are restricted from installing even a simple update to existing software let alone something that may be new to them, or they don't want to install anything on the workstation just to view a map one time.
Well the folks at AutoDesk have listened to our comments and may have a solution in the not so far further. Called "Project Freewheel". What it does is the server is doing all the work and rendering the dwf for the visitor to your webpage. Sounds interesting and I will be trying it out with a few dwf files in the next couple of days so check back and you may see some cool dwf's or links to them.