As much as we all love 3D, it's no secret that a lot of you out there  still use, reference, edit, even create, 2D files now and then. It's  also no secret that Dassault Systèmes hasn't been in the 2D game. But  that changes today with the launch of DraftSight, the newest product  from DS.

So what is DraftSight? It's a professional-grade, open 2D CAD system  for anyone who needs a way to read, write and share DWG files. DraftSight  can be used to create 2D drawings; update and maintain .dwg and .dxf  files; create PDF files; and exchange files with companies who either  provide or require data saved in either.dwg or .dxf file formats. You  can go to www.DraftSight.com to  check it out and download it for free. Yep, I said free. And it's  available for anyone, from students to professional designers.

  

DraftSight only takes a few minutes to download, and runs on Windows  XP®, Windows Vista® and Windows® 7. They even tell me that native Mac OS  and Linux versions planned for later this year. And when you visit the  DraftSight website, you find a new user community that you can join to  talk with other users, submit ideas for new functionality, and even get  plug-ins.

Don't speak English? That's OK. DraftSight is even available in  simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, Czech, French, German, Italian,  Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian. That's a  baker's dozen of languages.

So check it out. You can find out more about DraftSight and download  the beta version for free at the  official website.