QCAD is a

computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

(CAD) software application for 2D design and drafting. It is available for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which in ...

, Apple

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lap ...

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

. The QCAD

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...

is based on the Qt framework. QCAD is partly released under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...

. Precompiled packages are available for 32-bit and 64-bit Linux platforms, Microsoft Windows OS and macOS. QCAD is developed by RibbonSoft. Development on QCAD began in October 1999, starting with code from CAM Expert. QCAD 2, designed to "make QCAD more productive, more user friendly, more flexible and increase its compatibility with other products" began development in May 2002. QCAD 3 was first released in August 2011 with an

ECMAScript ECMAScript (; ES) is a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different browsers. It is standardized by Ecma International in the documenECMA-262 ECMAScript is commonly used for client-side scripting o ...

(

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, often ...

) interface as major addition. Some of the interface and concepts behind QCAD are similar to those of AutoCAD. QCAD uses the

DXF AutoCAD DXF (Drawing Interchange Format, or Drawing Exchange Format) is a CAD data file format developed by Autodesk for enabling data interoperability between AutoCAD and other programs. DXF was introduced in December 1982 as part of AutoCAD ...

file format internally and to save and import files. Support for the popular DWG file format is available as a commercial plugin based on the

Open Design Alliance Open Design Alliance is a nonprofit organization creating software development kits (SDKs) for engineering applications. ODA offers interoperability tools for CAD, BIM, and Mechanical industries including .dwg, .dxf, .dgn, Autodesk Revit, Autodes ...

DWG libraries. Starting from version 3.7 QCAD is distributed as Professional Trial that works for a limited time, or as Community Edition as source code only, so users need to self compile or remove the QCAD Professional add-on running in trial mode. Although much of the software source is under the GPL-3.0-or-later license there is also significant functionality not available under a

free software license A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software. These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder (usually the author) ...

. QCAD has a large library of different templates.

Multiplatform support

QCAD operates on Linux, macOS 0.7 (Lion) or later UNIX (

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular op ...

NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is ava ...

), Solaris for x86 and

SPARC SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system developed i ...

, and Windows , 7, Vista, XP, 2000 This is of importance for collaboration across a diverse computing environment.

References

External links

* *
A good tutorial for QCAD

QCAD downloads for all platforms

QCAD Community Forums
* KAD (KDE aided design) is a version of QCAD for the

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...

Linux Desktop. Se
KAD – KDE aided design
2D Computer-aided design software Computer-aided design software for Linux Engineering software that uses Qt Free computer-aided design software Free educational software MacOS computer-aided design software {{CAD-software-stub

Multiplatform support

See also

References

External links