AutoCAD Drawing Interchange Format .dxf
AutoCAD’s published interchange format. The CAD lingua franca.
What a .dxf file holds
DXF is the format Autodesk publishes so other software can read AutoCAD data, and it has been the neutral CAD exchange format since the 1980s. Most DXF files in the wild are 2D drawings; what converts here is the 3D geometry: 3DFACE and polyface meshes, so extruded or solid-modelled shapes come through while dimensions, hatches and text do not.
Commonly seen in: AutoCAD, LibreCAD, QCAD, Fusion 360, laser cutters, CNC.
| Data | Stored in DXF |
|---|---|
| Geometry | Yes |
| Materials and colour | Yes |
| Texture maps | No |
| Animation and rigs | No |
| Scene hierarchy | Yes |
| Read here | Yes |
| Written here | Yes |
Tested against a real file
The last sweep loaded rifle.dxf from Assimp test models with its 1 sidecar files through the viewer on this site: 572 triangles across 1 meshes and 1 materials, in 2.1 seconds. Every format's result is on the test results page, run 2026-09-08.
What we put in a .dxf file we write
Geometry as 3DFACE entities, one layer per mesh, with true colour on each face. 3DFACE is the entity every DXF reader implements, which matters more here than a mesh entity that would be more compact and less widely understood.
Convert DXF to another format
Every pairing has a page saying what survives the trip.
Convert something else to DXF
Other things to do with a .dxf file
Questions about DXF
How do I open a .dxf file?
Drop it into the viewer on this site and it opens in the browser, with the scene tree, the materials and the mesh statistics. Nothing is uploaded. If you want it in another program instead, convert it to GLB, which almost everything reads.
Is DXF a good format to archive in?
DXF stores geometry, materials and colour, scene hierarchy. Anything outside that list will not be in the file at all, so archive the original alongside it if the surfacing or the rig matters.
Does converting DXF lose quality?
Geometry is copied vertex for vertex, so the shape does not degrade. What gets lost is whatever the target format has no field for: convert to STL and the materials go, convert to OBJ and the animation goes. The comparison table on each converter page says exactly which.
Written up on the blog
Formats that hold the same things
Or go back to the full format reference.