The source code is written in VB.NET as a Visual Studio 2008 project (). Just be careful not to press the button too many times. It doesn't load a new file as fast as I would like, but there is nothing I can do about it. I plan on adding this functionality to a menu bar at some point. You can still access all navigation tools if necessary by right-clicking on the drawing and going through the menus. If you want to use it yourself but don't like that functionality I can change it if you ask nice enough. I have it set up to zoom to extents whenever you move/resize the window, since I wanted the full page visible at all times. I used the very nice ActiveX control from DWG TrueView to do most of the heavy lifting, so you will need to install that before running my app. NET Framework 3.5 (download here)and DWG TrueView from Autodesk (download here). I included the executable and source code. Even DWG TrueView doesn't do what either of these programs do very, very nicely. I only wish that Autocad had something that was just as neat without going thru the DWF publishing route to use Autodesk Design Review. So if you're looking at a 3D assembly, you'd have to actually open it to see it instead of previewing it. The major limitation with both of these programs is that they have trouble seeing real 3D Autocad models in the preview. It's a much smaller download & is a little less showy, but has been around for years and opens & prints the oldest Autocad files I have. As you're getting ready to open a 2D file, it shows you the thumbnail for each drawing. eDrawings works fairly well too for a free app (also by Solidworks). Once you find the right file, you can open the drawing with your choice of viewers or even go directly to Autocad. The only thing is that the preview resolution is very low - the price you pay for being able to flip thru tons of files quickly.

It's free and does do the flip book thing you're looking for with both Solidworks & Autocad 2D drawings. This may sound wierd coming from a confirmed Autocad fan since 1994, but look at Solidworks Explorer 2008.

Autocad drawing viewer