Optional companion integration that unlocks 3D scene extrusion and rendering of DXF layouts through Blender.
Optional companion integration for converting 2D drafts to parametric 3D and exporting FreeCAD wall data.
Provides CAD-expert chat and streaming LLM responses through Ollama, with configurable model/provider settings.
This server does not currently have a deployable release on Glama. Follow the repository's setup instructions to install and configure it for your MCP client, including any required credentials and local dependencies.
AI-driven 2D CAD automation — DXF/DWG parsing, 3D extrusion, persistent file depot, room analysis, and full CRUD management. 12 MCP tools (8 portmanteaus + 4 Prefab cards) for DXF processing. Your AI assistant becomes a QCAD Pro operator.
You might use this if… | You want your AI to process floor plans programmatically, convert DXF to 3D for Resonite/Unity3D, maintain a persistent CAD file depot, or automate drafting workflows. |
What it connects to |
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Ports | Backend 11966, Dashboard 11967 |
Start |
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v0.5.0 portmanteau surface: each tool takes an op discriminator plus the op's
parameters (old per-op names survive only as webapp-internal aliases).
Tool | Access | Purpose |
| READ/MUTATE | Core ezdxf ops: |
| MUTATE |
|
| READ/MUTATE |
|
| MUTATE | QCAD Pro: |
| READ/MUTATE |
|
| MUTATE |
|
| READ/MUTATE |
|
| READ |
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| READ | Prefab card: QCAD Pro status |
| READ | Prefab card: depot files |
| READ | Prefab card: beam FEA results |
| READ | Prefab card: building metadata |
Related MCP server: multiCAD-mcp
qcad-mcp works completely standalone. You can optionally connect it with companion servers in the sandraschi fleet to unlock extended features:
Companion Server | Feature Unlocked | Status | Setup |
3d-scene-extrusion, render-dxf-layouts | Optional | ||
2d-draft-to-parametric-3d | Optional |
Self-Contained Companions: Fleet companions operate independently. Installing companions does not trigger transitive dependency chains.
All CAD files are stored in a persistent depot at %LOCALAPPDATA%\qcad-mcp\depot — survives server restarts and system reboots. Configurable via QCAD_MCP_DEPOT env var.
Depot CRUD via REST API:
Endpoint | Method | Description |
| GET | List all files with metadata (size, dates, description, tags) |
| GET | Download a DXF file |
| PUT | Rename or update description/tags |
| DELETE | Remove file + metadata sidecar |
| POST | Create DXF from JSON entity spec (line, rect, circle, text, polyline) |
| POST | Upload DXF/DWG directly to depot |
Endpoint | Method | Description |
| GET | Server health, ezdxf version, QCAD Pro status |
| POST | Upload DXF/DWG (also saved to depot) |
| GET | Download SVG/STL/PDF/PNG outputs |
| GET | List all files (depot + outputs) |
| GET/PUT/DELETE | Full CRUD on the persistent CAD depot |
| POST | Execute any MCP tool |
| GET | SSE live log stream |
| POST | Chat with CAD expert via Ollama |
| GET/PUT | LLM + extrusion defaults + QCAD Pro path |
Route | Page | Description |
| Dashboard | Hero banner, QCAD Pro status panel, depot stats, ezdxf version |
| AI CAD Demo | NL → floor plan → SVG → 3D STL. Preset cards, pipeline stepper, tabbed results |
| Chat | Streaming LLM chat, skill-first, 6 personalities, history, export |
| Inbox | New-file review queue with inline preview and Viewer links |
| Tools | Portmanteau catalog with op chips + Playground deep-links |
| Skills | Skill browser (same files the Chat uses as system prompt) |
| Depot | Full CRUD file browser with SVG preview, create DXF wizard, upload, rename, delete |
| Viewer | DXF upload + SVG preview with per-layer toggle |
| Extrude | DXF → STL with wall height/thickness/wall-layer controls |
| Analyse | Room detection, area table, door/window list |
| Layers | Layer visibility, freeze/lock, rename, bulk operations |
| Blocks | Search 4800+ CAD blocks from library with download |
| Scripts | Browse QCAD ECMAScript scripts gallery + save local scripts |
| AI Agent | Autonomous multi-step CAD workflow (QCAD Pro) |
| Batch | Run info/analysis/extrude across all depot files. STL batch extrude with gallery |
| Pipeline | 5-step wizard: describe → SVG → analyse → STL → FreeCAD wall data export |
| Playground | Tool API tester: select any tool, edit JSON args, execute, view raw response |
| Models | Uploads vs outputs listing with download |
| Logs | Live SSE log viewer with filter/export/pause |
| Settings | LLM provider/model, extrusion defaults, QCAD Pro path |
| Help | 10-tabbed reference: QCAD, ezdxf, tools, pipeline, formats, fleet |
| — | Free, paid, and historic floorplan sources + raster→DXF pipeline |
just bootstrap # uv sync + bun install
start.ps1 # kills zombies, starts backend + frontend, opens browserirm https://github.com/sandraschi/qcad-mcp/releases/latest/download/install.ps1 | iexInstalls the stable qcad-mcp.mcpb bundle into Claude Desktop. Other
clients (Cursor, VS Code, OpenCode): use uvx with the stdio entry:
{
"mcpServers": {
"qcad-mcp": {
"command": "uv",
"args": ["run", "--directory", "D:\\Dev\\repos\\qcad-mcp", "run_server.py"]
}
}
}{
"mcpServers": {
"qcad": {
"url": "http://localhost:11966/sse",
"transport": "sse"
}
}
}Scanning a floorplan print into a working DXF is straightforward:
Book/magazine page → scanner (300-600 DPI) inkscape-mcp
↓ (Trace Bitmap)
Potrace / Inkscape ↓
↓ QCAD MCP
Raw vector DXF (plan_edit(op="modify"))
↓
Clean up in QCAD / plan_edit(op="modify")Step | Tool | What it does |
Scan | Any scanner | 300-600 DPI, grayscale or B&W, save as PNG/TIFF |
Vectorize | inkscape-mcp | Converts raster lines to SVG paths |
Convert | SVG → DXF (via potrace or ezdxf) | Opens in any CAD program |
Clean | qcad-mcp | Merge short segments, delete stray marks, re-layer, re-dimension |
Two approaches:
inkscape-mcp route — send the scanned PNG to inkscape-mcp's trace_bitmap() tool, get back SVG with proper path geometry. The SVG imports cleanly into QCAD as workable entities.
potrace in qcad-mcp — add a plan_raster_to_dxf(file_name) tool that wraps potrace + ezdxf. Self-contained, no external server needed.
Either way, the result goes through plan_edit(op="modify") for cleanup (delete noise, merge wall segments, re-assign layers, re-add dimensions). The baroque church preset in the Demo page proves the parametric geometry works — scanning would let you capture actual existing buildings.
QCAD Professional sells for €50.40 for a single-user license — lifetime, no subscription. That looks absurd next to AutoCAD at $2,000+/year, but RibbonSoft's revenue model is more nuanced:
Product | Price | Market |
Community Edition | Free (GPLv3) | Hobbyists, students, tinkerers |
QCAD Professional | €50.40 | Individual professionals, small firms |
QCAD Pro Site License | €440.40 | Companies (unlimited seats, single site) |
QCAD Pro Server License | €583.20 | Self-hosted deployment |
QCAD Pro Scalable Server | €1,771.20 | Enterprise-scale |
QCAD/CAM (CNC add-on) | €132.00 | Manufacturing |
QCAD/CAM Site License | €1,173.60 | CNC shops |
Books / E-Books | €40–42 each | Documentation, passive income |
The strategy is open-core freemium with enterprise site-license extraction:
Community Edition is genuinely free and capable (GPLv3). It's a giant funnel — architects, makers, and students learn on it, recommend it, and eventually their employer buys a site license.
€50 individual is friction-free "impulse buy" pricing — no PO approval needed, no vendor negotiation. You just buy it.
Site & server licenses (€440–€1,771) are where the real revenue lives. An architecture firm with 20 seats paying €440 beats 200 individuals paying €50. And server licenses for SaaS/on-prem deployment scale further.
QCAD/CAM at €132 captures the CNC/manufacturing niche — a separate, higher-value market.
Books at €40 are pure margin — the manual is already written, printing costs are negligible.
RibbonSoft is a Swiss GmbH (limited company) based in Sarnen, not retirees. 100% of their office energy is from Swiss hydropower (they're proud enough to put it in the footer). They've been doing this since 1999 — 26+ years of sustainable bootstrapping.
Who pays? Ganesh in Bangalore runs the Community Edition for his residential projects — it handles DXF perfectly for Indian building code drawings. When a client demands DWG or PDF export, he drops €50 on Pro — one job pays for it. As his practice scales past 5 seats, he graduates to a site license. Meanwhile a European architecture firm pays €440 for compliance reasons and never thinks twice. The Bay Area Autodesk tax ($2,500+/year) only makes sense when someone else is paying.
€50 clears every threshold, everywhere. No PO approval, no vendor negotiation, no subscription clock. You buy it once and own it.
Python: Ruff linter + format, Pyright typecheck (0 errors) — src/ + run_server.py
Frontend: Biome + tsc --noEmit + bun lockfile — 22 TypeScript pages
Protocol: FastMCP 3.4 (stdio + HTTP /mcp) + 40 REST routes
Tools: 12 MCP tools (8 portmanteaus + 4 Prefab cards) with READ_ONLY/MUTATING annotations
Automation: Justfile recipes for all fleet operations
Tests: pytest (78+) + Playwright e2e specs
MIT — see LICENSE.
This server cannot be deployed
Headless CAD engine & MCP server for 2D/3D drafting, solids, DXF/SVG export, and automation.
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