DGN (design) is the name used for CAD

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

s supported by

Bentley Systems Bentley Systems, Incorporated is an American-based software development company that develops, manufactures, licenses, sells and supports computer software and services for the design, construction, and operation of infrastructure. The company' ...

, MicroStation and

Intergraph Intergraph Corporation was an American software development and services company, which now forms part of Hexagon AB. It provides enterprise engineering and geospatially powered software to businesses, governments, and organizations around the w ...

's Interactive Graphics Design System (IGDS) CAD programs. The DGN format is used in construction projects, including buildings, highways, bridges, process plants, shipbuilding. DGN is a competing format to

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that provides software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquarte ...

's DWG.

Versions

There are two versions of DGN: * Intergraph Standard File Formats (ISFF) specification, published in the late 1980s by Intergraph. This is sometimes referred to as V7 DGN, or Intergraph DGN. *In 2000, Bentley Systems created an updated version of DGN which includes a superset of DGN's capabilities, but which has a different internal data structure to the ISFF-based DGN. This version is properly referred to as V8 DGN.

History

In 2003 OpenDWG™ Alliance (now

Open Design Alliance Open Design Alliance is a nonprofit organization creating software development kits (SDKs) for engineering applications. ODA offers interoperability tools for CAD, BIM, and Mechanical industries including .dwg, .dxf, .dgn, Autodesk Revit, Aut ...

), a non-profit industry consortium committed to promoting open industry-standard formats for the exchange of CAD data, and

, Incorporated, announced that the Alliance will support V8 DGN. Bentley increased its membership level to become the Alliance's first supporting member. The Open Design Alliance provides Teigha for files (old name is DGNdirect) - a development platform available using C++ that is used with files and other graphics files. In 2008 Autodesk and Bentley agreed on exchange of software libraries, including Autodesk RealDWG, to improve the ability to read and write the companies' respective DWG and DGN formats in mixed environments with greater fidelity. In addition, the two companies were to facilitate work process interoperability between their AEC applications through supporting the reciprocal use of available

application programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that des ...

s (APIs).

References

External links

OpenDGN
- Bentley's OpenDGN initiative
Teigha
- a software development platform used to create engineering applications including CAD with native support of .dwg and .dgn files.
Microstation 95/ISFF Description (pdf)
- Information on the ISFF/DGN file format as distributed with Microstation 95.

- Intergraph Standard File Formats (Element Structure) CAD file formats {{CAD-software-stub