QCAD MCP

AI-driven 2D CAD automation — DXF/DWG parsing, 3D extrusion, persistent file depot, room analysis, and full CRUD management. 7 MCP tools for DXF processing. Your AI assistant becomes a QCAD Pro operator.

MCP Tools

CAD Depot (Persistent File Storage)

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:

REST API

Webapp Pages

Quick Start

just bootstrap   # uv sync + npm install
start.ps1        # kills zombies, starts backend + frontend, opens browser

MCP Client Config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "qcad": {
      "url": "http://localhost:10966/sse",
      "transport": "sse"
    }
  }
}

Raster → DXF Pipeline (Planned)

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_modify)
                         ↓
                    Clean up in QCAD / plan_modify

Two approaches:

1. 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.
2. 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_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 Pro Pricing — €50? Really?

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:

The strategy is open-core freemium with enterprise site-license extraction:

1. 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.
2. €50 individual is friction-free "impulse buy" pricing — no PO approval needed, no vendor negotiation. You just buy it.
3. 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.
4. QCAD/CAM at €132 captures the CNC/manufacturing niche — a separate, higher-value market.
5. 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.

Quality Stack

• Python: Ruff linter — zero errors across 5 MCP tools + depot CRUD
• Frontend: Biome + tsc — zero errors across 9 TypeScript pages
• Protocol: FastMCP 3.2 SSE transport + 10 REST endpoints
• Automation: Justfile recipes for all fleet operations
• AI Protocol: FastMCP 3.2 with SSE transport

License

MIT — see LICENSE.