Drafting · IndoCAD

Free CAD software online — draw, dimension and plot in your browser

IndoCAD is the 2D CAD module inside CivilOS. It is free CAD software that runs in an ordinary browser tab — no installation, no licence key, no trial clock and no watermark stamped across your sheet. It is written for the everyday output of an Indian design office: a floor plan, a column layout, a site plan, a bar-bending detail, a sheet that has to go out today at a stated scale with a title block on it.

Two kinds of people use it: draughtsmen who already know a command line and want that muscle memory on a machine where nothing is installed — a client's laptop, a site cabin PC, a college lab — and everyone who is simply sent a drawing and needs to open, measure and print it without buying anything.

What you can do

Feature	What it does	Export
Command line	Type the aliases you already know — L, C, PL, TR, EX, OS, ZW and the rest — instead of hunting through ribbons	—
Typed coordinates	Absolute (100,50), relative (@200,0) and polar (@3000<90) entry, so a wall is exactly 3 m and not nearly 3 m	—
Object snaps	Pick the geometry that is already on the sheet — ends, corners, centres — rather than eyeballing a point near it	—
Dimensions	Aligned, linear, angular, radius and diameter dimensions that read off the real geometry	DXF · sheet
Hatching	Fill a bounded region with a pattern — brickwork, concrete, earth, section poché	DXF · sheet
Block library	Over 200 ready blocks to insert: doors, sanitary fittings, furniture, symbols, trees, vehicles	DXF
Layers	Proper AIA/NCS layer names — A-WALL, A-DOOR, A-GLAZ, A-ANNO-DIMS — so the file opens tidy on somebody else's machine	DXF
Architectural objects	Wall with a real thickness, door and window hosted in the wall, column, beam, grid axis, stair, room tag that traces and reports its own area	DXF · sheet
Plot to sheet	A0–A5 and ARCH sheet sizes, title block, north dial and scale bar; the scale you set is the scale that prints	Printable sheet
Import	Open DXF and DWG files read-only — view, measure, trace over, plot	—
Export	Write R12 DXF, which every CAD package on the market can open	.dxf

The architectural objects are the part worth dwelling on. A hosted door is not a block sitting on top of a wall; it belongs to that wall, so when the wall moves or changes thickness the opening goes with it. A room tag traces its boundary and reports the enclosed area, which is the number you will later want for finishes and for a carpet-area check.

How it fits an Indian drawing office

An Indian office does not stop at the drawing. The same geometry has to become a quantity, a rate and a bill, and survive a departmental checker who works to a code. So the plan you draft here is the plan you take quantities off, priced against CPWD DSR 2023 (all 3,047 items shipped as data) or a State PWD schedule of rates, then written into an IS-code BOQ, a sanctioned estimate and a running account bill in government format.

On the sheet itself, Indian practice follows the ISO A series with a title block, a north indication and a stated scale; IS 962 is the code of practice most offices cite for building drawings. CivilOS gives you those sheet ingredients and a north dial you set once — but it does not audit your drawing against IS 962 for you, and layer discipline and line conventions remain your professional responsibility. Reinforcement leaving this drawing is detailed in the BBS module to IS 456, IS 2502, SP 34 and IS 13920.

How to draw and plot a sheet

Open the CAD tab. Nothing to download; the drawing area and command line are there immediately.
Set your layers. Use the AIA/NCS names so walls, doors, glazing and dimensions are separable later — A-WALL, A-DOOR, A-GLAZ, A-ANNO-DIMS.
Draw the shell. Place walls with a real thickness and grid axes for the column lines, typing lengths on the command line rather than dragging by eye.
Host the openings. Insert doors and windows into the walls so each opening is cut by the wall that carries it, then drop columns, beams and stairs.
Insert blocks and hatch. Pull sanitary fittings, furniture and symbols from the block library; hatch the sections and the finishes.
Dimension and tag. Add aligned and linear strings, radius and angular dimensions where curves and splays need them, and room tags for areas.
Plot. Choose the sheet size, set the scale, check the title block, the north dial and the scale bar, and print or save the sheet.
Hand over. Export R12 DXF for the consultant, the contractor or your own desktop package.

What CivilOS does not do

No paper-space layouts or viewports. You plot the model to a sheet; there is no layout tab with multiple scaled viewports on one sheet.
No external references (XREF). Each drawing stands alone. A grid drafted once cannot be referenced live into six other files.
No LISP, VBA or scripting. There is no way to automate a repetitive routine of your own.
No DWG write. DWG comes in read-only; work goes out as R12 DXF. If your client contractually requires a native DWG deliverable, you will need to convert it elsewhere.
No annotative text. Text and dimension sizes do not scale themselves by viewport; you set them for the sheet you are plotting.
No structural analysis and no rendering. IndoCAD draws and documents; it does not solve a frame and it does not produce photoreal images.

Say the limitation out loud, plan around it. If a project depends on XREF-based coordination across a large sheet set, plan for a desktop package for that project. Knowing this before you start is worth more than a page that promises everything.

Where a free browser CAD tool actually fits

Desktop CAD packages earn their licence on large, long-running jobs: hundreds of sheets held together by external references, layout viewports at several scales, standards enforced by scripts, and a native format the whole supply chain has standardised on. That is real work, and a browser tool does not do it.

A free browser tool fits the large remainder. A single sheet going out this afternoon. A drawing you have received and need to measure and mark up. A class of forty machines that cannot each carry a licence. A site engineer on a tablet checking a dimension against what has been built. A practice whose whole project is fifteen sheets. There, opening a link and drafting straight away — in Hindi, Telugu or Tamil if that reads faster — is worth more than the features that are missing.

Frequently asked questions

Is this CAD software really free?
Yes. Drafting, dimensioning, plotting and DXF export are free in the browser, with no licence and no watermark on your drawing. Only the AI assistant features carry fair-use limits.

Can I open a DWG file online?
Yes, read-only. You can open a DWG someone has sent you, view it, measure it, mark it up, trace over it and plot it. Your own work saves as R12 DXF, because CivilOS does not write DWG.

How do I type coordinates?
The command line takes absolute (100,50), relative (@200,0) and polar (@3000<90) entry. Aliases are the familiar ones: L line, C circle, PL polyline, TR trim, EX extend, OS object snaps, ZW zoom window.

Can I plot a drawing to scale on an A1 sheet?
Yes. Pick a sheet size from A0 to A5 or the ARCH sizes, set the plot scale, and the sheet prints with a title block, a north dial and a scale bar. The scale you set is the scale that prints.

Is CivilOS an AutoCAD replacement?
No, and we do not claim it. There are no paper-space layouts or viewports, no XREF, no LISP, no annotative text and no DWG write. It is a free browser tool for ordinary 2D production; a licensed desktop package still suits large XREF-based sheet sets.

Do I need to install anything?
No. It opens in a normal browser tab on a laptop, desktop or tablet. If you want an app icon, install CivilOS as a PWA from the browser menu and it opens in its own window.

Which languages does the interface support?
The interface runs in 24 languages including English, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil, so a draughtsman and a site engineer can each read the same drawing comfortably.

Start drafting free in IndoCAD → command line, snaps, layers, sheets, DXF export