ezdxf-browse - Man Page

ezdxf browse – PyQt DXF structure browser for DXF debugging and curious people

Synopsis

ezdxf browse [-h] [-l LINE] [-g HANDLE] [FILE]

The browse command opens a DXF structure browser to investigate the internals of a DXF file without interpreting the content. The functionality of the DXF browser is similar to the DXF Pretty Printer (ezdxf-pp(1) command), but without the disadvantage of creating giant HTML files. The intended usage is debugging invalid DXF files, which cannot be loaded by the ezdxf.readfile() or the ezdxf.recover.readfile() functions.

Line Numbers

The low level tag loader ignores DXF comments (group code 999). If there are comments in the DXF file the line numbers displayed in the DXF browser are not synchronized, use the ezdxf-strip(1) command beforehand to remove all comments from the DXF file in order to keep the line numbers synchronized.

GUI Features

The tree view on the left shows the outline of the DXF file. The number in round brackets on the right side of each item shows the count of structure entities within the structure layer, the value in angle brackets on the left side is the entity handle.

The right list view shows the entity content as DXF tags. Structure tags (data type <ctrl>) are shown in blue, a double click on a reference handle (datatype <ref>) jumps to the referenced entity, reference handles of non-existent targets are shown in red.

Clicking on the first structure tag in the list opens the DXF reference provided by Autodesk in the standard web browser.

Auto Reload

The browser automatically displays a dialog for reloading DXF files if they have been modified by an external application.

Menus and Shortcuts

File Menu

Open DXF file... Ctrl+O
Reload DXF file Ctrl+R
Open in Text Editor Ctrl+T, open the DXF file in the associated text editor at the current location
Export DXF Entity... Ctrl+E, export the current DXF entity shown in the list view as text file
Copy selected DXF Tags to Clipboard Ctrl+C, copy the current selected DXF tags into the clipboard
Copy DXF Entity to Clipboard Ctrl+Shift+C, copy all DXF tags of the current DXF entity shown in the list view into the clipboard
Quit Ctrl+Q

Navigate Menu

Go to Handle... Ctrl+G
Go to Line... Ctrl+L
Find Text... Ctrl+F, opens the find text dialog
Next Entity Ctrl+Right, go to the next entity in the DXF structure
Previous Entity Ctrl+Right, go to the previous entity in the DXF structure
Show Entity in TreeView Ctrl+Down, expand the left tree view to the currently displayed entity in the list view – this does not happen automatically for performance reasons
Entity History Back Alt+Left
Entity History Forward Alt+Right
Go to HEADERS Section Shift+H
Go to BLOCKS Section Shift+B
Go to ENTITIES Section Shift+E
Go to OBJECTS Section Shift+O

Bookmarks Menu

Store Bookmark... Ctrl+Shift+B, store current location as named bookmark
Go to Bookmark... Ctrl+B, go to stored location

Options

Positional Arguments

FILE: DXF file to browse

Optional Arguments

-h, --help: show a help message and exit
-l LINE, --line LINE: go to line number
-g HANDLE, --handle HANDLE: go to entity by HANDLE, HANDLE has to be a hex value without any prefix like ‘fefe’

Environment

See ezdxf(1).

Files

See ezdxf(1).

The browse command stores options in the config file, e.g. for the Notepad++ on Windows:

[browse-command]

text_editor = "C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe" "{filename}" -n{num}
icon_size = 32

text_editor is a simple format string: text_editor.format(filename="test.dxf", num=100)

Quote commands including spaces and always quote the filename argument!

For xed(1) on Linux Mint use (note: absolute path to executable):

[browse-command]

text_editor = /usr/bin/xed "{filename}" +{num}
icon_size = 32

For gedit(1) use (untested):

[browse-command]

text_editor = /usr/bin/gedit +{num} "{filename}"
icon_size = 32

Examples

Browse the internal structure of a DXF file like a file system:

$ ezdxf browse gear.dxf

Referenced By

ezdxf(1), ezdxf-audit(1), ezdxf-config(1), ezdxf-draw(1), ezdxf-hpgl(1), ezdxf-info(1), ezdxf-pp(1), ezdxf-strip(1), ezdxf-view(1).

July 2023