Your geometry already knows how it was made.

MODCAD reads it back. Import a STEP file and get an editable part. Bring a sheet from a past project and get the start of this one. It’s built so a small team can do the work of a large one.

Request early access See what it does
Project
MODCAD
Sheet
Overview
Status
In development
Early access
Open

Most of a project’s hours go into rebuilding things that already exist: parts that arrive with no history, drawing sets redrawn for every new job, versions passed around by email. MODCAD is a CAD environment built to recover that work instead of repeating it.

What it does

Turn imported parts into editable ones

Open a STEP file that has no feature history. MODCAD reads its faces, proposes the extrudes, cuts and holes that would rebuild it, then replays them to check the result against the original. Accept the recipe and you have a parametric part: change one value and the features that depend on it follow.

  • Proposals arrive as ghosts. Nothing changes until you accept.
  • A recipe only counts as a match when it rebuilds the import to within 0.1% of its volume.
  • The original stays attached as a locked reference, so you can check again after every edit.
  1. The bracket as imported: one grey solid with no feature history.Imported: one solid, no history
  2. The same bracket with proposed features shown as translucent amber and blue ghosts.Proposed: seven features as ghosts
  3. The rebuilt bracket after the upright height was changed from 64 to 84 millimetres.Editable: height 64 → 84 mm
The hero animation above, in three frames.

Start a drawing set from your best past one

Bring in one sheet from a past project as a PDF. MODCAD finds its title block, plan and section views, grids, levels, schedules and notes, then proposes the same structure for this project, filled with this project’s model. You choose which views go where, check the proposals and accept them.

  • Anything it can’t classify is kept on its own layer and shown, never thrown away.
  • Every proposal shows where on the old sheet it came from and how sure MODCAD is.
  • Grids and levels become project datums, approved once and shared by every sheet.

Recognition works today. Recreating sheets is in progress.

A past sheet’s structure, rebuilt around a new building.

Share work without the ceremony

Parts, assemblies and sheets live in one library. Each one is either Ready, or being edited by one named person. Every save writes a version with a change note you didn’t have to type. Anything that uses a part sees the new version, and moves to it when someone decides it should.

  • No Draft, In review or Released states to manage. Teams that want them can use tags.
  • Other people’s parts appear as references: visible and measurable, never edited by accident.
  • Works on a single computer today. Team sync comes later.
One edit, one version, one change note, written for you.

How a project moves through MODCAD

  1. Import

    STEP models from any CAD system, and drawing sheets as PDF.

  2. Review

    Proposals arrive as ghosts, each with its evidence and confidence.

  3. Accept

    What you accept becomes real, editable data. What you dismiss is gone.

  4. Draw

    Sheets with live views and dimensions that know which model they measure.

  5. Share

    Versions, references and change notes, without a workflow to babysit.

Who it’s for

Architects and building engineers
Start each project from your best precedent instead of a blank sheet. Plans, sections, elevations, schedules, grids and levels are the main case, not an afterthought.
BIM and design technology leads
One library with honest version history. Roles, title block templates, levels and grids are set in one place, and changes to them come to you for approval.
Mechanical and product engineers
Get an editable feature tree back from supplier STEP files that never had one, and check every edit against the original geometry.
Small firms with big scopes
Let the software do the rebuilding so the people you have can spend their hours on design.

How MODCAD behaves

It proposes. You decide.
Recognised features, sheet elements and datums are ghosts until you accept or dismiss them.
Nothing is dropped.
What it can’t classify stays visible and editable, on its own layer.
Every number shows its source.
Dimensions and proposals carry where they came from and how sure the software is.
Every action is a command.
Anything you can click, you can type at the command line, so it can also be scripted.
Your files stay with you.
MODCAD runs on your computer. Reading geometry and sheets happens there, not in someone else’s cloud.

Coming next

Rules that live on the geometry

Designers will be able to write the reasons into the model itself. Pull a service clearance off a face, tether a connection to the system it serves, pin what’s been decided. Move something and the rules answer back, right where you’re looking, with no separate rules panel to manage.

The same layer is being tested with building-code checks, starting with residential zoning in Los Angeles.

Concept: a clearance that turns red when a column gets in the way.

Where things stand

Working in the development build

  • Recipe recovery for machined parts: extrudes, cuts, holes, fillets, cones and tori
  • Drawing sheets with live views, hidden lines and dimensions that track their source
  • Library with versions, references and automatic change notes
  • Large building models, imported with repeated parts stored once
  • Admin tools: roles, title block templates, levels, grids and zones

In progress

  • Precedent sheets: recognition and review work; recreating the new sheet is next
  • End-to-end demos for a machined part and a full building

Next

  • Rules on geometry: clearances, connections and pinned decisions
  • Building-code rule packs
  • Team sync, hosted where you choose

Questions

Is MODCAD a plug-in for another CAD tool?

No. It’s a standalone desktop application with its own file format. It reads STEP files from any CAD system and drawing sheets as PDF, and exports drawings as SVG.

What do you mean by a recipe?

The ordered list of features (extrudes, cuts, holes and so on) that builds a part. Most exported files lose it. MODCAD recovers one that rebuilds the same solid, so the part becomes editable again.

Will it recover the exact history our designer used?

It recovers a valid history that rebuilds the same shape, which isn’t always the steps a person took. Where more than one answer fits, it picks one, marks the choice, and keeps the alternatives so you can switch.

Does it upload our files anywhere?

No. MODCAD runs on your computer and the library works locally. Team sync is planned, and you’ll decide where it’s hosted.

Which platforms does it run on?

Windows, today.

When can we use it?

We’re opening early access to a small number of teams first. Tell us below what you’d bring, and we’ll start with the files that would show the most.

Bring us a file you’d rather not rebuild.

We’re working with a small number of early teams. Tell us about the part or the drawing set you’d try first, and we’ll be in touch.

We only use your details to reply about early access. How we handle them.