DWG Viewer for VS Code
Open, inspect, search, measure, and export DWG drawings without leaving
VS Code.
DWG Viewer is an open-source, local-first, read-only viewer built for large
drawings, Korean SHX/BigFont text, external references, and paper-space
layouts. Your drawings and fonts stay on your computer.
This is an early public release. Editing and DWG saving are not available,
and the viewer currently supports Linux x64, macOS arm64, macOS Intel x64,
and Windows x64.
Why we built DWG Viewer
Opening a DWG just to check one detail should not interrupt the work around it.
A conventional viewer or CAD workflow often means leaving the current
workspace, launching another application, waiting for it to become ready, and
then repeating part of that wait for each drawing. A few seconds at a time can
become a real loss of focus when many files need to be reviewed.
DWG Viewer was built around VS Code's existing file workflow. Select a drawing
in the Explorer and open it directly in an editor tab, next to the files and
code you are already using. Local conversion and a private reusable cache are
designed to minimize the time to a useful view and make repeat opens faster.
This extension does not try to replace a full CAD editor. It aims to remove as
much friction as possible from quick inspection, search, measurement, and
export, so checking a drawing feels like opening another project file instead
of starting a separate task.
Highlights
Private and read-only
- Drawing conversion, font handling, XREF discovery, and rendering happen
locally.
- The original DWG is never modified or uploaded.
- A private local cache makes repeat opens faster.
Korean CAD text support
- Displays
TEXT, MTEXT, ATTRIB, and ATTDEF content.
- Resolves SHX and BigFont files requested by the drawing.
- Detects legacy EUC-KR, CP949/UHC, and Johab/CP1361 BigFont encodings.
- Lets you connect missing or renamed fonts and falls back to an installed
Korean font when possible.
Comfortable navigation on mouse and trackpad
- Click-drag or two-finger scroll to pan.
- Use the mouse wheel or a trackpad pinch to zoom around the pointer.
- Drag a window to zoom, return to the fitted view, move through previous and
next views, and save named view bookmarks.
- The top-right and left tool shelves can independently remain icon-only or
reveal every tool name together on hover or keyboard focus.
- High-DPI interaction defaults to a hybrid strategy: it moves the completed
frame immediately, refreshes low-resolution geometry about every 80 ms to
cover newly exposed areas, and restores bounded detail after interaction.
- In-viewer controls follow the VS Code environment language for English and
Korean.
Layers, XREFs, and images
- Search layers, toggle visibility, isolate a layer group, invert visibility,
and restore the previous state.
- Layers are grouped from the current drawing and its actual XREF records.
- Resolves DWG XREFs and JPG/PNG image references across Windows, macOS, and
Linux path formats.
- Ambiguous or missing references can be selected manually and remembered at
the source, filename, or folder-mapping level.
Inspection and measurement
- Select drawing objects to inspect their type, layer, color, and relevant CAD
properties.
- Measure distance, cumulative distance, area and perimeter, three-point
angles, radius, and diameter.
- Calibrate a unitless drawing from two known points, then choose display units
and precision.
- Search
TEXT, MTEXT, ATTRIB, and ATTDEF across workspace DWGs from the
Explorer DWG 문자 검색 view. Selecting a result opens, centers, and
highlights it.
Layouts and export
- Switch between model space and paper-space layouts.
- Preserve layout paper size, rotation, viewports, frozen layers, and each
viewport's layer colors, transparency, linetypes, and lineweights.
- Export the current screen, current tab, or all layouts to PNG or PDF.
- Optionally apply a referenced CTB to a layout for plot colors and
lineweights.
- All-layout PNG export produces a portable ZIP with the original Unicode
layout-name mapping.
Get started
Requirements
- VS Code 1.125 or newer
- Linux x64, macOS arm64, macOS Intel x64, or Windows x64
Installation
Install DWG Viewer for VS Code from the VS Code Marketplace. The extension
prepares the exact version-matched native converter for the current platform
from the matching GitHub Release in the background. It verifies the declared
size and SHA-256 digest and runs a bounded self-diagnosis before use. Open a
.dwg file from the Explorer; no converter path needs to be selected.
For a manual or offline installation, download
dwg-viewer-vscode-<version>.vsix and the matching
dwg-viewer-native-converter-<version>-<platform> from
GitHub Releases. Install the
VSIX with Extensions: Install from VSIX..., then select the downloaded
converter only when the automatic release download is unavailable.
You can repeat the installed converter check at any time with DWG Viewer:
LibreDWG 변환기 진단. The manual converter-selection command remains an
offline fallback and never overrides a healthy version-managed converter.
For checksums, provenance verification, macOS security approval, and
platform-specific commands, see the
distribution and installation guide.
Everyday use
- Pan: click-drag or use a two-finger trackpad scroll.
- Zoom: use the mouse wheel, trackpad pinch, or window-zoom tool.
- Tune zoom response: adjust Mouse Wheel Zoom Sensitivity and
Trackpad Pinch Zoom Sensitivity independently in the DWG Viewer settings.
- Find a tool: hover or focus a shelf to expand all of its tool names.
- Choose compact menus: set Top Toolbar Labels and Left Toolbar
Labels under the DWG Viewer settings to
icons or hover independently.
- Tune high-DPI rendering: keep Render Resolution on
auto to reuse a
bounded pixel budget with MSAA disabled, choose performance for the lowest
pixel budget, or quality for full redraw quality and MSAA.
- Choose interaction behavior: keep Interaction Rendering on
hybrid
for an immediate retained-frame response plus periodic live refreshes, use
continuous to redraw newly exposed areas on every movement frame, or use
maximumPerformance to defer live redraws until interaction stops.
- Manage layers: open the left layer panel and search or change visibility.
- Inspect or measure: choose a tool, then select points or objects in the
drawing.
- Switch layouts: use the tabs along the bottom edge of the viewer.
- Search drawing text: use the Explorer DWG 문자 검색 view.
- Export: open PNG/PDF, choose a scope, and select output options.
The tool shelves and layout tabs remain compact until hovered,
keyboard-focused, or explicitly opened so the drawing can use most of the
editor. Expanding a shelf reveals all names at once without moving individual
tool targets.
What the viewer displays
- Lines, polylines, arcs, circles, ellipses, and splines
- Blocks, repeated block instances, dimension picture blocks, and nested XREFs
- Solid, gradient, and patterned HATCH content
- POINT, SOLID, 3DFACE, and WIPEOUT content
- CAD text, attributes, Korean SHX/BigFont glyphs, and common MTEXT formatting
- Model space, multiple layouts, viewports, and per-viewport layer display
overrides
- JPG/PNG IMAGE references and XCLIP boundaries
- Linetypes, colors, transparency, lineweights, and optional layout CTB styles
The viewer loads drawing detail and referenced images as they become useful on
screen, which keeps large drawings responsive without eagerly decoding every
resource.
Fonts and missing references
After the first drawing frame, the viewer looks only for fonts requested by
the drawing. It checks stored paths, the drawing folder, bounded project
locations, and folders you add through 글꼴 → 글꼴 폴더 추가 or
DWG Viewer: SHX 글꼴 폴더 추가.
The font panel distinguishes connected, substituted, ambiguous, missing,
unreadable, and malformed files. You can choose a replacement without exposing
its absolute path to the drawing Webview.
XREFs and images follow a similar local-first flow. The viewer tries portable
path alternatives and a bounded project search, then asks you when it cannot
choose safely. It never searches the whole disk or silently chooses between
equally ranked files.
Current limitations
- Viewing is read-only; editing, overwriting, and Save As are not available.
- Native converters are currently published for Linux x64, macOS arm64,
macOS Intel x64, and Windows x64.
- Embedded OLE content such as an Excel sheet is not rendered; its placement
frame may still be shown.
- External raster images currently support JPG/JPEG and PNG.
- Missing fonts, XREFs, and images must be connected to the correct local
files by the user.
Privacy, license, and source
The VSIX is licensed under MPL-2.0. Its complete source form is available in
the menaje/dwg-viewer repository,
along with build scripts and third-party notices. The packaged LICENSE.txt
contains Mozilla's unmodified MPL 2.0 text, while NOTICE contains the project
copyright notice.
The GPL-3.0-or-later LibreDWG adapter is never included in the MPL VSIX. The
release pipeline publishes each platform converter separately, together with
a source-complete archive containing the exact LibreDWG source, adapter source,
build scripts, unmodified GPLv3 and MPL 2.0 texts, manifest, and checksums. The
VSIX embeds the matching release filenames, sizes, and SHA-256 digests. The
main extension starts the verified executable as a separate process; it does
not load LibreDWG into the extension host.
Release artifacts are reproducibly built and include SHA-256 checksums and
GitHub build-provenance attestations. Details are in the
distribution guide.
The component-level license map and review rules are in the
licensing guide.
For contributors and integrations
User documentation stays separate from implementation contracts:
Run the full repository verification with:
pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
pnpm check
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