CAD files, XREF and CIFS

[ronnyt]

One of the reasons Documentum did not break through for the management of CAD files (as generated by e.g. Microstation) was that the XREF files in CAD environments used a lower level call to the Operating System (windows) to retrieve the Referenced files (CAD files are typically composed in XREF'd files).  It could be kind of coped with with add-on software (e.g. McClaren has made a CAD package for Documentum, but is it not brilliant, expensive, ..)

Am I making a mistake when I assume that the CIFS support in Alfresco is probably solving this problem? If that is so, I believe that a lot of engineering departments with Microstation and Autocad become an interesting target for implementation. It is also an interesting testcase for the exploration of link support in Alfresco.

[dozyarmadillo]

I know that this thread is old but I couldn't find any other references to management of complex engineering drawings (hybrids & xrefs). Has anyone tried using Alfresco + CIFS for this? I am guessing that you may need to enhance the import process to facilitate content associations (useful for web client I guess)..

[bgewehr]

We are a german engineering company and we are trying to do CAD drawing management with alfresco using cifs access for autocad users and web access for the project management. Did anyone do so and is willing to share his/her experience? I will keep you updated on our success - or failure.

Up to now, we are working in a windows driven 4.0.1 enterprise environment and encounter write rights issues using AutoCAD 2012 in the alfresco cifs share drive. Has anyone successfully dealed with that?

We are trying to provide previews and thumbnails using cadimage.dll with irfanview as a commandline automation in the normal mime type transformation configuration. And again: Has anyone successfully dealed with that?


Thank you for your answers and kind regards, Bernd Gewehr