QCad

QCAD is a free computer-aided design (CAD) software application for 2D design and drafting. It is available for Linux, Apple OS X, Unix and Microsoft Windows. The QCAD GUI is based on the Qt framework.

QCAD is released under the GNU General Public License. Precompiled packages are available for 32-bit and 64-bit GNU/Linux platforms, MS Windows OS and OS X.

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 a very complete and powerful ECMAScript (JavaScript) interface as major addition.

Some of the interface and concepts behind QCAD are similar to those of AutoCAD.

QCAD uses the AutoCAD DXF file format internally and to save and import files. AutoCAD DWG support is available as a commercial plugin.

Multiplatform support

QCAD operates on Linux, Mac OS X [10.8 (Mountain Lion), 10.7 (Lion), 10.6 (Snow Leopard)], UNIX (FreeBSD), Solaris for x86 and SPARC, and Windows [8, 7, Vista, 2000]. This is of importance for collaboration across a diverse computing environment.

See also

• Comparison of CAD Editors for Architecture, Engineering and Construction
• LibreCAD, a fork of QCAD 2.0

External links

• Official website
• QCAD binary for Windows on SourceForge.net - 2010.05.01. - qcadbin-win-2.0.5.0-1_rel-0.3 --- QCAD 2.0.5.0 Installer.exe
• A good tutorial for QCAD: http://linuxfocus.org/English/January2002/article132.shtml
• QCAD for Windows (binary)
• QCAD Community Forums (Note: this is for all that have been at http://www.ribbonsoft.com/forum which doesn't exist anymore)
• KAD (KDE aided design) is a version of QCAD for the KDE Linux Desktop. See KAD - KDE aided design
• LibreCAD is a version of QCAD CE ported to Qt4. See LibreCAD Windows and OSX Binaries