Graebert Releases SP3 for ARES Commander 2017—Supports DWG 2018 Format

Berlin-based Graebert GmbH has recently released the latest service pack (SP3) for its native DWG file format-based 2/3D CAD system, ARES Commander 2017.

Industry Leading Support for DWG File Formats

Graebert was the first to support DWG 2013 upon Autodesk’s changing of the file format for their AutoCAD product. Now, once again, Graebert is offering industry-first support of DWG 2018, the very latest DWG file format for optimal and complete compatibility with DWG-based workflows that include files from multiple sources including Autodesk’s AutoCAD software.

At the moment DWG 2018 is in the more critical “reading” in direction. Support for saving (“writing”) in the DWG 2018 format is coming shortly. Users can save back to multiple levels of DWG including 2013 – 2017, among others.

ARES Kudo News

Also in the news is that the fully web-based ARES Kudo is nearly finished and ready for roll-out (started with SP1). Graebert’s ARES Kudo is available to subscribers and available in all countries except Japan, India, China, Singapore, Honk-Kong, and Taiwan.

01 – This screenshot shows ARES Kudo with the editing tools, currently available to subscribers in the beta program.

ARES Kudo operates like a hub for all your DWG files in the cloud and works across multiple cloud storage services like Box, Dropbox, iCloud, and others. Kudo is included with the yearly subscription to ARES Commander.

In this first version of ARES, Kudo subscribers get access to the sharing and viewing features. The editing features of Kudo, to create or modify in the cloud, will come in the next version.

From ARES Commander you save to Save to Cloud, and this puts your DWG file into your synchronized cloud storage. To see the complete ARES Kudo workflow as it connects to ARES Commander see the video above.

Architosh has written extensively about Graebert’s ARES Commander technology and platform and you can read our review of ARES Commander for the Mac here (see, Architosh, “Product Review: Graebert ARES Commander 2016 for Mac,” 10 Jan 2016). Architosh will also be in Berlin next week for Graebert’s Annual Meeting event where we hope to learn all about the yearly progress this German software company has made and the progress its key developer partners and licensees have also made, like Onshape, Corel, and Dassault.

To learn more about ARES Commander 2017 visit here.

Architosh Analysis and Commentary

Graebert is arguably the leading DWG-based CAD competitor to Autodesk in the world, with important licensees and partners in industrial software giant, Dassault, among others.

The Key Takeaways

• Graebert is a global leader in the native DWG CAD arena where it competes with similar companies such as Bricsys and other ODA consortium competitors who all, in one way or another, compete with US-based Autodesk AutoCAD. 

• Over the years Autodesk has slowed down the progress of AutoCAD with respect to its file format. This has enabled the ODA to progress the development of its Teigha SDK and its overall development efforts to build-out what is possible with the DWG file format. This is fueling innovation in the DWG eco-system and players like Graebert are creating innovative solutions like ARES Kudo for example. 

• In Architosh’s estimation, ARES Kudo has another future opportunity to solve a pain-point that every non-AutoCAD CAD or BIM user has: viewing, checking, confirming, DWG files in both inbound and outbound workflows involving a multitude of non-Autodesk platforms. Today users export out to DWG using ODA code in their particular CAD solution and sometimes import that file back into their CAD application to verify that it exported out correctly. But this can produce false positives. Autodesk makes a DWG viewer app, but only for Windows. In short, validating DWG exports is a pain-point in the industry not optimally solved—especially on Mac. Additionally, viewing DWG files natively prior to import into non-DWG CAD systems is also a pain-point one must endure—again particularly on Mac—when working with non-DWG based CAD systems. 

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