.DWF File

The dwf file extension is associated with Design (Drawing) Web format used by AutoCAD and Inventor.

Design Web Format (DWF) is a secure file format developed by Autodesk for the efficient distribution and communication of rich design data to anyone who needs to view, review, or print design files. Because DWF files are highly compressed, they are smaller and faster to transmit than design files, without the overhead associated with complex CAD drawings (or the management of external links and dependencies).

With DWF functionality, publishers of design data can limit the specific design data and plot styles to only what they want recipients to see and can publish multisheet drawing sets from multiple AutoCAD drawings in a single DWF file. They can also publish 3D models from most Autodesk design applications.

Historically, DWF was a 2D plotter file format created by Autodesk for their AutoCAD software. As of 2006, Autodesk introduced DWF-3D which was an entirely new file format. DWF can be considered an empty "container file format" (similar to PDF) that actually contains many other internal files (a DWF file is actually just a ZIP file with a different file extension). In the early 2000s TechSoft American wrote Autodesk a 3D WEB streaming file format + 3D file viewer based on their HOOPS toolkit and HSF 3D file format which would morph into DWF-3D. Hence, as of 2006, the DWF-3D file format was based on an internal HSF 3D file as well as many additional XML files for such data as part hierarchy, meta data and other related information.  DWF-3D can generally be considered as Autodesk's "conduit" from their CAD programs out to their 3D file viewers such as "Design Review".

MIME file types:

application/dwf
application/x-dwf
drawing/x-dwf
model/vnd.dwf
image/vnd.dwf
image/x-dwf

Files with dwf file extension can be found as CAD files in special Autodesk Design Web Format. Used by both AutoCAD and Inventor.

How to open:

Use Autodesk AutoCad, Autodesk DWF Viewer or any capable CAD viewer to work with the *.dwf files.

How to convert:

DWF is similar to PDF in its purpose. And like you can scan a PDF document and get data back, you can also recover DWF files back to DWG (using third party utilities). You will most likely loose substantial amount of information, structure and precision of the original drawing so it is far from perfect.