IngeCAD

ingecad.org · CAD 2D libre para Linux, con DWG de fábrica.

Free 2D CAD for Linux, in the spirit of classic CAD.

IngeCAD is a lightweight 2D drafting program for civil engineers and architects coming from other CAD programs: the usual command aliases (M ⏎ moves, TR ⏎ trims), the classic pre-ribbon interface (menus + toolbars + a real command line), and faithful round-tripping of the DWG/DXF files your colleagues send you.

Part of the Inge ecosystem, alongside IngeTrazo (free 3D modeling / BIM) and IngePresupuestos (construction budgeting).

!IngeCAD viewport

*A real cadastral DWG open in IngeCAD 0.1 on Linux — layers panel, classic

command line, Model/Layout tabs, and status-bar toggles.*

Design pillars

Faithful files first. The document model is the DXF database (via

ezdxf); everything IngeCAD does not understand is preserved untouched when saving. DWG is handled by external converters (GNU LibreDWG bundled; ODA File Converter optional) — never parsed in-app.

CAD muscle memory. Command line at the bottom, the usual command

aliases (.pgp alias files), window/crossing selection, object snaps with the classic markers.

Linux/Wayland first. Native, fast, no ribbon — ever.
Deliberately small. Lines, circles, polylines, blocks, layers, hatches,

trim/offset/extend, survey points with elevations, and printing to scale. Not a feature-for-feature clone of any other CAD.

Status — v0.6.8.2

What works today:

Topography plugin (menu Topography): survey points from the total

station's CSV, bearings and distances, the construction chart, areas and subdivision, the descriptive report, an own Delaunay TIN with contours, profiles, cross sections, earthworks, platforms with slopes to daylight and exact volumes — all plain DXF that any CAD opens.

Terrain plugin (menu Terrain): georeference the drawing (UTM zone,

WGS84 or PSAD56, or any projected coordinate system by its EPSG code — the British National Grid is EPSG:27700 — through PROJ), read or type latitude and longitude, ground elevations from a global DEM, the satellite image under the plan, and Google Earth both ways by KML/KMZ. Plugins are managed in Tools ▸ Plugins; the contract for writing one is in docs/plugins.md.

!Topography: the construction chart and contours

> *A survey's points, the boundary drawn on them with its bearings and > distances, the construction chart IngeCAD computed from it (1 523.77 m², > 156.70 m) and contours every 0.25 m. Everything on the drawing is plain > DXF — POINT, TEXT, LWPOLYLINE, 3DFACE — that any CAD opens.*

!Terrain: the satellite image under the survey

> *The same survey with Esri World Imagery underneath at 0.29 m/pixel, > fetched for the polygon asked for and resampled into the drawing's own > UTM grid, saved beside the drawing with the attribution its licence > requires written on the plan.*

Faithful viewer for real-world DWG/DXF: nested blocks, MTEXT, hatches

(patterns + solids), linetypes, dimensions, OCS, paperspace layouts — smooth pan/zoom even on cadastre-scale drawings (90k+ entities).

DWG in and out: open .dwg transparently via GNU LibreDWG; save as

DWG r2000 (LibreDWG, bundled), with a silent verified-save check.

Classic interface: command line at the bottom with the usual aliases

(L, C, M, TR, Z+E …), dark model space, dockable Layers / Properties / Styles panels, drawing tabs to keep several drawings open in one window, and copy/paste between IngeCAD windows. Your own aliases go in the standard .pgp alias file (Tools ▸ Customize ▸ Edit Program Parameters, then REINIT); a Spanish alias file works as it is (DE, *DESPLAZA).

Paper space, the classic way: Model/Layout tabs and **the sheet itself is

editable** — draw, move, erase, trim, scale and edit the text of a title block with the commands you already know, in paper millimetres. Plus MVIEW floating viewports (objects you select by their frame, with grips), exact scales via ZOOM nXP or the scale dropdown, MSPACE / PSPACE, viewport lock, PAGESETUP per layout, and PLOT of the sheet at 1:1.

Drawing with the real prompt trees: lines, circles (2P/3P/TTR), the

full 11-way ARC matrix, polylines with arcs and width, rectangles (chamfer/fillet/area/rotation), polygons, ellipses and elliptical arcs, text with all 14 justifications, hatches that find their boundary among lines and arcs (islands included, like BPOLY); construction lines (XLINE/RAY), DIVIDE/MEASURE with aligned blocks, REVCLOUD.

Dimensions, complete: linear, aligned, angular, arc length, ordinate,

radius and diameter to the norm (arrowheads inside the circle), center marks and the chain-line axes of CENTERMARK / CENTERLINE, continue/baseline chains and DIMTEDIT — every command with its standard options (Text with <>, Angle, Rotated, Quadrant, Partial…) and the official prompts, plus the Dimension Style Manager with its five tabs and a live preview. Associative dimensions (DIMASSOC 2) follow the object they measure, and a colleague's dimensions keep their author's text, number and position when edited, moved, rotated or mirrored.

Layers, the classic way: the properties table (status, on, freeze, lock,

colour, linetype, lineweight, plot, description) with live search, and the -LAYER command line with wildcards for the keyboard-only flow.

Editing: ERASE / MOVE / COPY / ROTATE / SCALE / MIRROR / OFFSET

(polylines and arcs included, distance by mouse) / TRIM / EXTEND / FILLET / CHAMFER / STRETCH / BREAK / JOIN / ARRAY / MATCHPROP / PEDIT (Join turns lines and arcs into one polyline) / EXPLODE, grips, window/crossing selection, clipboard copy/paste, and ROTATE/SCALE show the result turning live under the cursor — with the standard options (MOVE/COPY Displacement, ROTATE/SCALE Copy, TRIM Fence, UNDO with a count, OOPS), locked layers that protect their objects, and an undo that gives back the whole object. Linetypes through a Linetype Manager.

The MTEXT in-place editor: text edits on the canvas at its real size

with the classic Text Formatting toolbar (style, font, height, bold, italic, underline, overline, colour), the ruler with indents, tab stops and the width arrow, line spacing, bullets and numbered lists, background mask and static columns — all stored as the standard MTEXT inline codes.

The classic CAD feel: object snaps with their markers (END, MID, CEN,

NOD, INT, PER, TAN, QUA, INS, GCE — on curves too, and through a layout's viewports to the model they show, with paper-space dimensions reading the model's length) with the status-bar running-snap list, ORTHO / POLAR (tracking that locks near a path, the increment and additional angles in Drafting Settings), a user coordinate system (UCS: moved and turned origin, named, Previous, Object) that typed points, the grid and the commands follow, the nested adaptive grid with GRIDUNIT / SNAPUNIT saved in the drawing, absolute / relative / polar coordinate input and LASTPOINT, command prefix autocomplete (OFF runs OFFSET), inquiry commands (DIST / ID / AREA / LIST), UNITS, blocks (B / I), a startup window with template units and recent drawings with thumbnails, and undo/redo of everything.

Output: print / export PDF and PNG to exact scale, from model or

layout, the extents, the view or a window picked on the drawing, with .ctb plot style tables; PUBLISH several layouts into one PDF; File ▸ Export ▸ DXF for Blender or QGIS.

External references (XATTACH, -XREF and an Xrefs panel): a

colleague's drawings shown in place, snapped to, kept on save.

Block attributes (ATTDEF, the attribute editor on double-click,

ATTSYNC, BATTMAN) for title blocks; leaders (MLEADER, QLEADER, LEADER); DIM, QDIM, DIMBREAK, DIMJOGGED, DIMSPACE; PURGE, OVERKILL, WBLOCK; LENGTHEN, ALIGN, BOUNDARY, DONUT, SCALETEXT; annotative text and dimensions at the annotation scale of each view.

Scripts: APPLOAD runs a Python file over IngeCAD's commands as one

undo step, SCRIPT runs a .scr script.

Raster images and PDF underlays: attach PNG/JPEG/BMP/GIF/TIFF or a

PDF page (rasterized) to trace over, with corner grips, brightness / contrast / fade and a transparency degree.

Tables (plain-geometry grids), splines, revision clouds,

DRAWORDER and the layer tools (LAYISO/LAYOFF/LAYON/LAYUNISO).

Grips on every selectable type, dimensions included: drag an

extension origin to re-measure, the line to relocate, the text to move the label — with alignment snapping to neighbouring dimensions.

The classic shortcut menu, with the commands behind it: object isolation, Select

Similar, Add Selected, Quick Select, Group, Find and Replace, QuickCalc and Draw Order.

A settings window (OPTIONS) under the familiar tab names, including

right-click customization.

The Block Editor (BEDIT, alias BE): open a definition in its own

environment — only the block, base point at the origin, the classic Block Editor toolbar — edit it with every ordinary command, and on BCLOSE ▸ Save every insert on the plan updates. Save/discard semantics, undo floor and recursion guard as the reference specifies.

Selection cycling: click the same spot again and the next overlapping

object answers — the dimension under the text somebody typed over it.

Spanish, complete — commands included: the whole interface, prompts

whose option keys always work (Suprimir, D and _D all delete a layout), and commands with their usual Spanish names (LINEA, BORRA, RECORTA…) with English never stopping to work underneath. A language is a folder under i18n/ — adding one needs no Python. Czech (community, by Michal Josef Špaček, 64 % of the strings) ships too.

Fast on real drawings: dimensions appear the instant you place them

(was seconds on big plans), regeneration ~2× on the heaviest surveys, layout tabs up to 2.5× with per-viewport culling, and the editing stalls measured away — a dimension grip drops in 100 ms instead of 3.1 s, MATCHPROP paints its second target in 37 ms instead of 2.76 s.

The display is yours: line smoothing (on by default), VIEWRES for

arc and circle smoothness, crosshair size and colour (CURSORSIZE) and pickbox size (PICKBOX) — under their standard names, typable at the prompt or set in Options ▸ Display / Selection.

Report a Problem under Help: guided issue forms, Spanish welcome.

Planned next (v0.5): survey-point import with elevations, coordinate tables, elevation profiles — as the first discipline plug-in. See CLAUDE.md for the roadmap.

Keyboard — the classic one

| Key | Does | |---|---| | F1 | Help (ingecad.org) | | F2 | Text window | | F3 / Ctrl+F | Object snap (OSNAP) | | F7 / Ctrl+G | Grid | | F8 / Ctrl+L | Ortho — and Shift held flips it for the moment | | F9 / Ctrl+B | Snap to grid (SNAP) | | F10 / Ctrl+U | Polar tracking | | F11 | Object snap tracking: pause on a snap point to acquire it, ride the alignment paths from it, lock on where two meet | | F12 | Dynamic input: the prompt and the live coordinates beside the cursor; a bare x,y is relative after a first point, #x,y absolute | | Ctrl+0 | Clean screen | | Ctrl+1 | Properties palette | | Ctrl+9 | Command line on / off | | Ctrl+A | Select all | | Ctrl+C / Ctrl+X / Ctrl+V, Delete | Clipboard and erase | | Ctrl+Shift+C / Ctrl+Shift+V | Copy with base point / paste as block | | Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y, U | Undo / redo | | Ctrl+J, Ctrl+M, Enter, Space | Repeat the last command | | Ctrl+ , Ctrl+\ , Esc | Cancel | | Ctrl+W | Selection cycling | | Ctrl+I | Coordinate display | | Ctrl+R | Next viewport in a layout | | Ctrl+PgUp / Ctrl+PgDn | Previous / next layout tab | | Ctrl+Tab | Next drawing window | | Ctrl+N / O / S / Shift+S / P / Q | New, open, save, save as, plot, quit |

Install (Windows, 64-bit)

From the [latest release: ingecad-setup-v*.exe installs it (Start menu, "Open with" for .dwg and .dxf); IngeCAD-*-windows-x64.zip runs without installing. The installer is not signed yet, so the first time Windows SmartScreen says it protected your PC: More info ▸ Run anyway.

Install (Linux, x86_64)

Flatpak (recommended) — one click, updates arrive on their own: downloads.ingecad.org/flatpak/ingecad.flatpakref opens in your software center; or from a terminal:

flatpak install --from https://downloads.ingecad.org/flatpak/ingecad.flatpakref

AppImage — download from the latest release, make it executable, run it. Nothing else to install — Python, Qt and the DWG converters are inside:

chmod +x IngeCAD-*-x86_64.AppImage
./IngeCAD-*-x86_64.AppImage            # or double-click it
./IngeCAD-*-x86_64.AppImage --check    # if something misbehaves

If your distro lacks FUSE (the one thing an AppImage needs), each release also ships the same build as a plain tarball — extract and run:

tar -xzf IngeCAD-*-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
IngeCAD-*/ingecad

--check prints where the app found its shaders, translations and converters, and exits non-zero if any of them is missing.

Classroom and office defaults

To give every account on a machine the same starting setup -- a class, an office -- put a folder at /etc/ingecad/ (or point INGECAD_SITE_DIR at one). It plays the part of a CAD deployment's shared support folder and profile, and each user's own choices still win over it:

/etc/ingecad/
├── defaults.ini    default value of any setting
└── acad.pgp        aliases, under each user's own acad.pgp

A secondary-school class: Spanish interface, right-click = Enter, and the survey plugins switched off:

; /etc/ingecad/defaults.ini
language=es
[input]
right_click=enter
[plugins]
topografia\enabled=false
terreno\enabled=false
[autosave]
savetime=5

acad.pgp there uses the standard .pgp syntax; a Spanish alias file works as it is. ingecad --check shows whether the folder was found. With the Flatpak, let the app read the host's /etc once, as root:

sudo flatpak override --system --filesystem=host-etc:ro org.ingecad.IngeCAD

Running from source

git clone https://github.com/ingelibre/ingecad.git
cd ingecad
python3 -m venv venv
venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
venv/bin/python main.py

DWG support needs the LibreDWG converters (dwg2dxf / dxf2dwg). The release AppImage carries them already; from a source checkout, either put them on your PATH (most distros package libredwg-tools) or build the patched ones IngeCAD ships:

tools/libredwg-patches/build-vendor.sh    # downloads, patches, builds into vendor/

That build is not stock: it is a LibreDWG release plus our own fixes, sent upstream as pull requests, without which many real-world drawings do not open or do not save. See tools/libredwg-patches/README.md. DXF works out of the box either way. LibreDWG is IngeCAD's only DWG engine: what it cannot do yet we fix in LibreDWG itself. ingecad --check shows where the converters were found.

Building the AppImage yourself

tools/libredwg-patches/build-vendor.sh   # once, for the converters
packaging/build-appimage.sh              # -> dist/IngeCAD-<version>-x86_64.AppImage

An AppImage links against the glibc of the machine that built it, so one built on a current distro will not start on an older one. The release workflow (.github/workflows/release.yml) builds on Ubuntu 22.04 for that reason.

To get the launcher entry, app icon and .dwg/.dxf double-click association on Linux:

./scripts/install-desktop.sh   # then log out/in once

ingelibre/ingecad: Free 2D DWG/DXF CAD for Linux in the spirit of classic AutoCAD — keyboard drafting with acad.pgp aliases, faithful DWG round-trip, paper space and dimensions, plus surveying and terrain plugins (points, construction chart, contours

IngeCAD

Design pillars

Status — v0.6.8.2

Keyboard — the classic one

Install (Windows, 64-bit)

Install (Linux, x86_64)

Classroom and office defaults

Running from source

Building the AppImage yourself

License

Reading Mode

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