Free online DWG to MKV converter

When a presentation system or video player cannot open a CAD drawing, converting it to MKV lets viewers see the drawing as video frames. The conversion renders the DWG’s pages or views; it does not preserve editable CAD geometry.

What the DWG format is

DWG is a CAD drawing format used for 2D plans and 3D design data. Autodesk AutoCAD creates it, and other CAD programs use it for engineering, architecture, and manufacturing drawings. DWG files commonly arrive from designers, contractors, or technical archives.

What the MKV format is

MKV (Matroska) is a multimedia container that can hold video, audio, subtitles, and chapter data. It supports multiple video and audio codecs, so compatibility depends on the codec inside the file as well as the player. Use it when the drawing needs to be viewed as a video or included in a video-based presentation.

How to convert DWG to MKV

Online on 101convert.com

1. Open the DWG-to-MKV converter page and upload the drawing. The page accepts batch conversions; check its displayed per-file size limit.
2. Set show each page for to choose how long each page appears.
3. Start the conversion, then download the resulting MKV file.

Offline with desktop software

There is no general CAD-to-video encoding that preserves drawing objects as video objects. Offline, render the drawing to a PDF or images, then encode those frames as MKV. A free workflow uses ODA File Converter, LibreCAD, and FFmpeg, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux:

1. Use ODA File Converter to convert the DWG to DXF. Open the DXF in LibreCAD and export or print the required drawing view to PDF using File → Export → Export as PDF (menu wording can vary by version).
2. Rasterize the PDF pages with Poppler’s pdftoppm, for example pdftoppm -png drawing.pdf page. This creates image files such as page-1.png.
3. For a single-page drawing, encode the image as a still-video MKV with FFmpeg: ffmpeg -loop 1 -i page-1.png -t 10 -r 30 -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p drawing.mkv. Change -t 10 to set the duration in seconds.

With commercial Autodesk AutoCAD, plot the DWG view or layout to PDF using Plot, rasterize the PDF as above, and encode the resulting image or images with FFmpeg. For multiple pages, assemble the images into a timed sequence before encoding; a single-image command only creates a video of one page.

Quality and compatibility

Choose the PDF plot scale and raster resolution before encoding: rasterization fixes line sharpness, and enlarging the finished video cannot restore detail. DWG features unsupported by the DXF converter or viewer may be missing or altered, so check the exported PDF. The MKV contains rendered frames rather than layers, dimensions, or editable CAD entities; its playback compatibility also depends on the selected video codec.