Extract text from Definition files (DFN)
To convert DFN definitions to another format, you need TotalLab or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "Proprietary Data File" file type, you need software like TotalLab or a similar tool.
The .DFN file format serves several highly specialized purposes across scientific research, software development, and gaming. Primarily, it functions as a 1D gel analysis data file utilized by scientific imaging software such as Nonlinear Dynamics TotalLab and Bio-Rad Image Lab. In the gaming sector, .DFN files operate as game launcher definition files for the CatSystem2 visual novel engine, or as compressed game data archives for the popular MMO Dungeon Fighter Online. Finally, in engineering, it may store proprietary 3D model data for Siemens I-deas.
Users face significant challenges when interacting with .DFN files because they are fundamentally proprietary and closed-source. You cannot open a scientific data .DFN file without a costly, highly specialized software license. Similarly, game data .DFN files are heavily packed to prevent tampering, meaning standard archive tools often fail to read them unless they use standard ZIP compression. You are locked into using the exact software that originally generated the data.
Converting a .DFN file to a standard format is extremely difficult. Scientific data might need to be exported to CSV or XLSX from within the original application to be useful in a spreadsheet, while game resources typically require specialized unpackers to extract usable PNG images or WAV audio assets. Standard online converters almost always fail to process .DFN files because they lack the specific parsing logic required to read these niche binary structures.
Because this is a closed, proprietary format, only the original software can reliably export the data. However, you can drag and drop your .DFN file into convert.guru to see what it is and convert it if supported. Our tool inspects the file's internal structure - if our analysis detects a supported underlying format like ZIP (which is common in Dungeon Fighter Online data), extraction and conversion may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your DFN file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted WDM, SSD and LGX files.
If you want to convert DFN file to DWG, DXF, DGN, RVT, RFA, SKP, 3DM, STEP, IGES, SAT, X_T or X_B, you can use TotalLab or similar software from the "Scientific Data & Game Configurations" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert SLDASM, DGN, PRT, IAM, X_B, CATPRODUCT, SLDPRT, RVT, ASM, DWG, CATPART or DXF files to DFN, try TotalLab or another comparable tool in the "Scientific Data & Game Configurations" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our DFN converter.