DWGnative

DWGnative is a term used to describe software components that provide native support for the DWG file format within CAD applications. A DWGnative library or module offers capabilities to read and write DWG files directly, enabling applications to access DWG data without intermediate conversions. It aims to faithfully represent DWG constructs such as geometry, layers, blocks, attributes, text styles, views, and metadata, while preserving object handles and dependencies where supported.

Implementation approaches vary, but DWGnative is commonly realized as a native binary library (often in C++) with language bindings for languages such as Python or C#. It provides an API to open drawings, traverse and modify entities, manage layers, blocks, styles, and to save changes back to DWG. Some implementations implement version negotiation to support multiple DWG revisions and maintain data integrity through validation and transactional operations.

In practice, DWGnative is used by CAD applications to enable direct DWG interoperability with other software that reads or writes DWG, to facilitate archival in the original format, and to support features like import/export and round-tripping. The term does not designate a single standardized standard; rather, it describes an approach or capability that various vendors or projects offer, sometimes under different license terms.

See also: DWG format, LibreDWG, Open Design Alliance, Autodesk’s DWG technologies, CAD interoperability.