Navisworks – The Wider Design Team

by Garry Stockton

Navisworks For the Wider Construction Team

Navisworks has two products:

• Navisworks Manage
• Navisworks Freedom

Of these, Freedom is a free viewer product that can be downloaded from Autodesk's website. Authoring is done by Manage. 

Navisworks file structure

Navisworks files come in three file formats:

• A file that holds the shape and properties of NWC cache objects
• NWF file sets file combinations, cameras, annotation information
• NWD dataset is a file that combines NWC and NWF into one

Image courtesy of Autodesk

NWC-Information on shapes and attributes

Navis can read many files, but when you read any file with Navis, it is converted to "nwc (Navisworks Cache)" format.

NWF-File management information

A file that manages the file set. It stores information such as which nwc was combined and how, where and how the camera and view were placed, and annotation information.
It should be noted that NWF is always a set with NWC. NWF alone cannot display shape and attribute information.

NWD - NWF + NWC

NWD is a compilation of NWF and NWC into a single file. Freedom can only read NWD format files.

Readable files

The file formats that can be read by Navis Works Manage are as follows.

Image courtesy of Autodesk