This is a list of free and open source 2D CAD (computer-aided design) software packages.
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- FreeCAD - Draft workbench
- About FreeCAD
The Draft Workbench allows you to draw simple 2D objects, and offers several tools to modify them afterwards. It also provides tools to define a working plane, a grid, and a snapping system to precisely control the position of your geometry.
The created 2D objects can be used for general drafting in a way similar to Inkscape or Autocad. These 2D shapes can also be used as the base components of 3D objects created with other workbenches, for example, the Part and Arch Workbenches.
FreeCAD is primarily a 3D modelling application, and thus its 2D tools aren't as advanced as in other drawing programs.
- LibreCAD
LibreCAD is a free Open Source CAD application for Windows, Apple and Linux. Support and documentation is free from our large, dedicated community of users, contributors and developers.
- Solid edge 2D drafting
With a familiar user interface, easy-to-use tools that comply with the most popular drafting standard capabilities to simplify your experience, Solid Edge 2D Drafting has everything you need to quickly and easily create 2D documentation. Solid Edge 2D Drafting offers simple drawing layout, diagramming, annotation, and dimensioning controls that automatically comply with drafting standards, including the International Standards Organization (ISO), American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and British Standards Institution (BSI), among others.
Start your drawing from scratch, or easily import existing .DWG files. An optional step-by-step wizard allows you to preview the drawing, including each individual layer, and control background color, drawing size, line type, font, and more.
When you're finished, you can save your file as either a Solid Edge or .DWG format, allowing you the flexibility to collaborate with customers, peers, and partners, and to easily open your 2D CAD files in nearly any 3D CAD program.
- NanoCAD
NanoCAD is an easy-to-use 2D CAD application that delivers a great user experience by providing high performance, full capability, a classic interface and native .dwg format support. NanoCAD has been built to deliver design and project documentation for all industries. nanoCAD includes a full suite of basic and advanced tools, for creating industry-standard DWG-compatible CAD files. free. software download video editing full version. NanoCAD provides innovative, collaborative and customizable features to enhance your efficiency. nanoCAD includes several APIs, allowing anything from routine task automation to complex CAD application development. All for free.
- QCAD Community edition
QCAD is a free, open source application for computer aided drafting (CAD) in two dimensions (2D). With QCAD you can create technical drawings such as plans for buildings, interiors, mechanical parts or schematics and diagrams. QCAD works on Windows, macOS and Linux. The source code of QCAD is released under the GPL version 3 (GPLv3), a popular Open Source license.
QCAD Application WindowQCAD was designed with modularity, extensibility and portability in mind. But what people notice most often about QCAD is its intuitive user interface. QCAD is an easy to use but powerful 2D CAD system for everyone. You don't need any CAD experience to get started with QCAD immediately.
Though the medium of design has now shifted from the sketchpad to the screen, there are still those who prefer to sketch by hand. Nonetheless, it's rare to find anyone within the design industry who produces a hard copy of a design without a digital file to back it up. After all, paper drawings are just physical records. Designers and engineers need to convert these drawings to fully editable vector designs so they can use them in CAD.
This guide covers everything you need to know about scanning a design into the computer, and converting the resulting raster file into a CAD-friendly vector format.
Table of Contents
When would paper to CAD conversion be used?
There are several instances where paper to CAD conversion becomes necessary.
One common scenario involves old technical drawings or architectural plans. Your studio may have won a contract to develop part of a site further. The trouble is, all of the previous plans were drawn on physical paper, rather than on a program like AutoCAD. In such an instance, you could begin by manually drawing the designs in your preferred software, and going from there. However, this would require a huge commitment of time and energy, which would be better spent editing the initial design to the client's new specifications. A more efficient method would be to use the technological advances that are present in Scan2CAD, which allow you to automatically convert a scanned paper drawing to a CAD format.
The same principle applies to hand-drawn sketches, or any other design that has been produced on paper.
Why do you need conversion software?
Only vector graphics are suitable for designing in CAD. Source: University of Connecticut
When you scan your drawing—either onto your computer, or directly into Scan2CAD—you will be able to save it as a raster file. Raster file formats are commonly used display on the web, but are not suitable for use within the context of CAD design. Their lack of structure means that you cannot edit individual entities without affecting the image as a whole. Furthermore, if you increase the image size, this can cause the drawing to lose quality and appear fuzzy or pixelated.
In order to use your scanned paper drawings for CAD design purposes, you will need to convert them into a CAD-compatible vector format, such as DXF (Drawing Exchange Format) or DWG (Drawing). Unlike raster images, vector files are capable of holding masses of data about each individual element. This data is readable by CAD software, and is invaluable when collaborating on an important project.
Vectors also benefit from resolution independence: however far you zoom into the file, you will never see a loss of quality. Furthermore, whereas raster graphics are made up of pixels, vector graphics are made up of objects, such as lines, arcs, Bezier curves or polygons. You can edit each of these entities individually without affecting the rest of the image, granting the designer much more freedom.
There are 2 methods of vectorization: manual tracing and automatic tracing. The term ‘tracing' refers to the process of drawing over raster images with vectors. While humans can understand design more effectively than technology, we're more prone to inaccuracy. Tracing by hand with a graphics stylus or mouse is also very time consuming. Automatic tracing, on the other hand, is performed by raster-to-vector software like Scan2CAD. You may have to touch-up raster images prior to conversion, but the process is very quick: it takes mere seconds.
With Scan2CAD, you can opt to convert a scanned drawing to a wide range of different vector formats—most commonly DXF or DWG. We'll look at the differences between the two, and how to vectorize your drawing a little later.
Scanning your drawing
Can you scan any drawing?
Conversion software is only able to work with what it's given. When assessing whether your drawing is suitable for scanning, you need to be aware of both size and clarity.
Some drawings are simply too small to be scanned, however much you try to offset this with resolution. Others are too faint, or too dirty, to be cleaned up well enough to produce a credible scan. You also need to be aware of obscured lines. If too many lines are overlapped by text, no software would be able to make sense of the information.
What type of scanner can you use?
You can scan directly to Scan2CAD: all you need is a compatible scanner. These include any Twain- or WIA-compliant scanner, or, if you have the pro version, a Colortrac SmartLF scanner, or an HP Designjet T2300 eMFP.
Simply start by loading your design directly from your scanner into Scan2CAD. Free lightroom for macbook. If a dialogue box appears, choose appropriate settings, and then instruct the software to Scan.
It makes little difference which of these scanners is used, although the latter model does offer you a preview within the software; use this to check whether your scan is fit for conversion. If not—if your drawing is skewed, for instance—rescan until the image is optimal.
If you don't have access to any of the scanners mentioned, you can still convert your drawing to CAD: it will just add a couple of extra steps. Simply scan your drawing onto your computer as normal, load it in Scan2CAD, and vectorize.
When scanning your drawing, it's important to save it as a lossless format. TIFF is an ideal format; other lossless formats include BMP and PNG. You should avoid lossy formats, such as JPEG, which sacrifice image quality for smaller file sizes.
Scanner Settings
Color
Most scanners give you the option to scan in color, grayscale, or monochrome. In most cases, the best option for vectorization is to scan your drawing in monochrome. This separates your image into just two colors—black and white—which means that Scan2CAD can easily separate out the design in the foreground from the white background.
If scanning an image as a monochrome image, it's worth checking your scanner's threshold settings. These determine which parts of your image are scanned as black and white respectively. If they're set too high, text may 'bleed', and speckles may appear in the background. Set them too low, and your image may lack detail. It's possible, however, to simply scan your image in grayscale, then separate the colors out into black and white using Scan2CAD's thresholding tool.
Resolution
High resolution doesn't automatically produce a better scan; the important thing is to find the resolution that is most appropriate. But you should also be aware that while you can decrease image resolution after it has been scanned, you cannot increase it. As a general rule, you should be looking at a resolution between 200 and 400 DPI; smaller images, such as logos, may require higher resolution. If your scan appears pixelated, this is a key sign that you need to increase the resolution. Likewise with characters within areas of text, and the spacing of entities—you want clear white space to be visible between them.
This latter issue may need a combination of resolution and threshold adjustments, and you should experiment with both until the image is optimal.
Pre-conversion clean-up
Using the Deskew tool on very skewed images usually results in a significant loss of quality
Before converting your raster scan to a vector file, ensure that you have not missed any basic errors. Check that the whole drawing has been scanned and that it is as straight as possible. While Scan2CAD does provide a deskew tool, using it may result in a loss of quality. See our comprehensive guide for optimal raster-to-vector conversion results for more areas you should watch out for.
If you do need to clean up any of the image, there are a number of tools available to you. Other than deskew, you can also fill in missing gaps in lines. Use the Remove Holes function for small holes, or Flood Fill for larger gaps. Opting to Smooth lines will get rid of stray ‘hairs' from your lines, and if there is a small amount of dirt in the background, you can ‘Remove Speckles' to eliminate marks.
It's best at this point to work through the full quality checklist, zooming in to ensure you haven't missed anything that will become an issue during vectorization.
Converting to vector
DXF or DWG?
To convert from a simple image to a file that contains important design data and that can be easily edited in CAD software, you'll need to convert your drawing from raster to vector. With Scan2CAD, you can choose between numerous vector formats, notably including DXF or DWG. Both formats allow you to edit individual entities and reuse them, should you so wish. This can save time in the future when creating CAD files with similar elements to those in this file. What's more, neither DXF or DWG files are resolution dependent: however far you zoom in or out; whatever size you view the image, the drawing's quality will be retained.
But while DXF files are supported almost universally by CAD programs, making them ideal for collaboration, the DWG format is native to AutoCAD. If you don't own this software, don't panic—you may still be able to view and edit a DWG without AutoCAD.
You may prefer this format if you are keen to edit the drawing using native AutoCAD entities, or if you are only going to be sharing the file with those who use the same software. If you are unsure which to go for, take a closer look at the qualities of each of these vector file types. And remember, it's not the end of the world if you get it ‘wrong': you can always convert your DWG to a DXF, or vice versa, at a later date.
Free Cad Blueprint Software
How to vectorize your drawing
Whether you're looking to convert your scan from a TIFF or a PDF, and to a DXF or DWG, the process is the same.
Free Architectural Drawing Software
- Once you've loaded the file into Scan2CAD, you need to select Type to bring up different options. Choosing the correct type of drawing, such as sketch, or contour map, will ensure that the appropriate vectorization settings are applied during conversion.
- Choose which parts of the raster image you wish to convert, then simply click to vectorize them!
- Experiment with different settings, using the preview window provided.
- Finally, select File > Vector > Save As and choose your preferred output file format.
It really is as quick and simple as that! And, if you've got a mountain of hard copies that you need to scan, there's no need to convert each one individually. Use the Batch Processing tool to automate the process, while retaining control on pre-conversion optimization.
Converting a scanned paper drawing to vector using Scan2CAD
Post-vectorization editing
Once your scanned paper drawing has been successfully converted into a format suitable for CAD, the fun has only just begun. Make full use of the extensive vector editing suite to adapt and develop the image further, or export the file to your favourite CAD software and work on it from there.
Useful resources
If you need more support on converting your scan to vector, then you may find the following pages helpful: How to get free winzip software.
If you want to have a go at converting a paper drawing to CAD without the commitment of paying, you can enjoy a no-strings-attached, 14-day trial of Scan2CAD without spending a penny. You'll soon realize why it is the ultimate market-leading vectorization software.
