Musa CAD 0.1.0

Musa CAD is a fast, modern 2D CAD application in C++23. It mirrors AutoCAD’s UI layout, command line, and classic shortcuts, on a multi-threaded, GPU-accelerated, data-oriented core targeting a smooth 144 Hz+ viewport.

This is the first public release: capable, but early. It is genuinely usable for 2D drafting today — and there are real gaps, listed honestly below.

What it does

• Drafting: line, polyline, circle, arc, rectangle; hatches (solid fills + .PAT line patterns with a built-in stock library).
• Modify suite: move, copy, rotate, mirror, scale, offset, trim, extend, fillet, chamfer, join, array, erase.
• Annotation: linear / aligned / radius / diameter / angular dimensions, leaders & multileaders, text (TrueType + built-in stroke fonts, AutoCAD control codes, MTEXT).
• Organization: layers, linetypes (with LTSCALE / per-entity CELTSCALE), blocks / INSERT, a Properties palette, and MATCHPROP.
• Workflow: an AutoCAD-style ribbon with progressive collapse + contextual editor tabs, on-canvas dynamic input, multi-document tabs with a cross-document clipboard.
• Interchange: DXF read/write built in; DWG import/export via an external converter.
• Output: PDF / print plotting with true vector output.

Platforms

• Linux — MusaCAD-0.1.0-x86_64.AppImage (runs anywhere; bundles Qt) and MusaCAD-0.1.0.flatpak (flatpak install --user MusaCAD-0.1.0.flatpak).
• Windows — MusaCAD-0.1.0-x86_64-setup.exe (NSIS installer; optional .musa/.dxf file associations at install time). Note: this installer is produced by CI and has not yet been hardware-tested on a real Windows machine. Please report any install/launch issues.
• macOS — planned, not in this release.

Known limitations (read before relying on it)

• DWG requires an external converter (ODA File Converter or LibreDWG’s dwg2dxf) on your PATH; it is never bundled. DWG is unavailable inside the Flatpak sandbox by default (built-in DXF works everywhere). This keeps the build LGPL-clean.
• Block editing is import-only. Blocks come from DXF/DWG import; there is no in-app block creation (BLOCK) or in-place block editing (BEDIT) yet. DIMENSION/LEADER/POINT/ SPLINE entities inside a block definition are skipped on import (and catalogued in a log).
• SHX fonts are not parsed natively — SHX text maps to the built-in stroke font / a TTF equivalent (single-stroke CAD fonts import faithfully). TTF width_factor is not yet applied to glyph geometry (minor).
• Import fidelity gaps (catalogued, not silently dropped): some SPLINE variants, SOLID/ 3DFACE/WIPEOUT, dynamic blocks, tables, fields, proxy entities, and any 3D geometry.
• MTEXT inline per-character formatting and paper-space linetype scaling (PSLTSCALE) are deferred.
• This is a 2D engine; 3D B-rep is intentionally deferred behind a stable kernel interface.

Build from source

Clone-and-build clean (no third-party CAD/geometry dependency). See docs/BUILD.md. In short: a C++23 compiler, CMake ≥ 3.25, and Qt 6, then cmake --preset release && cmake --build --preset release.

License

LGPL-3.0-or-later. You may link Musa CAD into your own software (including proprietary) under the LGPL’s relink terms. Third-party components and the DWG/GPL-boundary evidence are in docs/THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.

Reporting issues

Please file bugs and feedback at https://github.com/MusaCAD/MusaCAD/issues — include your platform, the artifact you installed, and steps to reproduce.