CadTools, free 3D and surface utility for BricsCAD
Design your civil work in real 3D with this handy tool!
Latest update: 2026-03-27 Build 770

CadTools (ToolBox) is developed for Civil Engineers using CAD. There are a number of great software on the market supporting the design process of roads, rails etc. For minor design work CadTools can be very useful, it contains more than 50 commands mostly in real 3D to support your work.

By combining separate commands through the work process you can achieve almost anything you want. When I developed the commands I certainly had some situations in mind but every command can be used in a variety of situations not only in civil work design.
 With CadTools you can create your own surface models based on objects in the drawing or import triangles from DWG (other civil software). You can create profiles and cross-sections of multiple surfaces, calculate volumes and plot contours.
 It's easy and fun creating real 3D models with CadTools commands, some of these commands can only be found in software that you have to pay money for.
I work as a civil designer at one of Sweden's leading consulting companies. My main tool for civil design is Bentley InRoads/RailTrack, one of the best software I've seen. Sometimes you need something less complicated so I started developing CadTools while traveling to work by train.

After more than five years and thousands of hours of developing this software now is a powerful tool way beyond my first intentions. Honestly I can't be without it, hope you will feel the same.

CadTools is an out of process software and supports AutoCAD versions: 2001- (vanilla and verticals i.e. Civil 3D). It also supports ZWCAD+ (2014-2015 and 2018-) and BricsCAD


Major Commands in CadTools are listed below. CadTools has a complete helpfile with images of command results.

Text
Insert or remove characters to single line text.
 Align text to UCS and scale it.
 Align Text to Left.
 Send selected text to Excel
Line Aligned Text
Capitalize/Uncapitalize text
Lines
 Area calculation of polylines based on color or layer. Results can be exported to Excel
Export polyline coordinates to Excel
Length calculate of polylines based on color or layer. Results can be exported to Excel
Reverse polyline
Point section and offset from polyline
Draw slopemarks from polylines
 Offset 3DPolylines
Create cylinders (pipes) from polylines/lines.
Profile 3DPolyline
Create road signs and markings
Level out 3Dpolyline
Transverse 3D lines between 3D Polylines (3D Slope signs)
Join 3D Polylines
Draw Slope Arrows for 3Dpolylines (Ditch bottom slope direction)
Stationing Polyline
Line Aligned Text
Edit Polyline Elevation and slope (In table)
 Create 3D alignment from plan and profile
 Best fit, 3D-polyline regression.
Simplify command for 3D-polylines
Set polyline elevation by nearest text, fixes contours with no elevation but text!
Lines/Polylines to EPANET INP-file

Layers
 All layers on
All layers off but selected
 All layers off but current
 Layer off by object
 Xref layer freeze by single object
 Move to layer by object
Set current layer by object
Delete layer

Draw
 Draw polylines, circles and blocks from coordinates. Paste from Excel to CadTools

Surface
 Generate longitudinal features (ditch bottom, surface interception) with cut/fill tick marks.
Import Triangulated Surface from Graphic (from other software)
Triangle Volume and color cut/fill areas in plan.
 Triangulate objects (create surface models)
 Drape surface with objects and lines
 Pick and annotate elevation from surface
 Create wireframe surface
 Cut & Fill areas in cross-sections
 Create Surface Profiles
Create Surface Cross Section
View Surface Slope and Direction
View Perimeter for flat (or any slope interval) Surface Areas
Pick and annotate Slope vector from surface
 Constrained triangulation (breaklines)
Surface Contours
 Trickle, traces the path of a drop of water down a selected surface.
Volume by Elevation, triangle volumes at intervals
Trickle All, evaluate surface water paths.
Convert
Convert 3DPolylines to 2Dpolylines
Convert 3DFaces to 3Dpolylines
Convert arc to 3Dpolyline
Create coordinate grid
 Place sloped text
 Convert Circle to 3Dpolyline
Xref
 Open Xref by Object
Detach Xref by Object
 Save/Load Xref-settings to/from file

 Block
 Edit block attribute text
 Annotate block elevation
 Drainage network evaluation, evaluation of block (manholes) and Lines (pipes). Result in Excel
 Export block information to Excel (coordinates, attribute values)

Hatch
 Export Hatch area to Excel

 Miscellaneous
Vehicle Turning Simulation (Vehicle Tracking)

Drafting
Annotate Profiles/Cross sections

Vehicle Turning Simulation (Swept path analysis). Configure vehicles of your own and do analysis in the drawing. Much faster design than using turning templates.

 

 

Create surface cross-sections as 2D or 3D. Display crossing reference lines

  
 

Surface Contours

 

View Surface slope and direction.
Easily detect flat areas.
Perimeter of areas with userdefined slopes.
Create real 3D cut and fill by applying end-conditions to 3Dpolylines.
Very simple and powerful step by step process.


Create Give Way

Create Chevrons

Limitations:
CadTools does not work with AutoCadLT. Some features are limited for unregistered users.

 Problems running CadTools? Probably it's Vista's UAC dabbling, try to launch CadTools as an Administrator. Simply find the shortcut for CadTools, right click on it then in the Compatibility tab select the option that say: Run this program as an Administrator.

If you are using Bricscad you will find the Vehicle Turning in BricsTurn. The Vehicle Turning is also available as a freeware for Microstation V8. MSTurn

Downloads
 Download (MSI-file, ca 6,6 Mb), Last updated 2026-03-27 Build 770
Alternative download (ca 39 Mb Zip-file containing complete installation and update plus reference manual)
Update for CadTools (ca 4,8 Mb), Last updated 2026-03-27 Build 770
Download update only. If you already installed CadTools and only need the update, use this link.

 Additional downloads
 Reference Manual English (ca 2,6 Mb) (PDF document, printed documentation 112 pages, updated 2014-06-20)
Reference Manual Italian (Translated by Gennaro Bellaiuto)
Video Samples (Collection of video demonstrations)

Default Vehicle Libraries (metric and imperial), ZIP-file
 You may find localized Vehicle Library files in the Vehicle Library section in CadTools Forum

Extensive Youtube Video Tutorials for CadTools in Spanish by Javi Lapina, you can translate subtitles to match your needs
 Javi Lapina CadTools Tutorial 1
 Javi Lapina CadTools Tutorial 2

CadTools Forum
 Online discussion site for CadTools.




If you find CadTools useful, why not donate and become a registered user

How much should I donate? There is no right answer to that, the result is always the same no matter how much or little you donate.
Received donations are used for paying Server, Domain and Software fees.


Please note that donation notifications are sent to me from PayPal by email and I manually send you a registration email as soon as possible.
Generally I respond same day. If you haven't received a responding email in a couple of days, check your spam filter or post a message to me in CadTools forum.

 lars.karlsson@glamsen.se

Latest update (2026-03-27 Build 770)
 Fixed bug in "Convert, Polyline to 3D Polylines", removed unwanted point at end of arcs. Added message if closed objects used arcs as closing element.

Update (2025-04-28 Build 768)
 Added support for exporting Leaders to Excel (Lines, Export Leader to Excel).
Enhanced Polyline Stationing with option to Annotate Vertices Only (Lines, Stationing).

Update (2025-04-14 Build 767)
 Cross Section area calculation. Fixed unwanted behavior when surface line and proposed does not intersect. Added setting for display (plot) area figures in drawing.

Update   (2024-10-14 Build 765 and 766)
 Older ZWCAD+ could not be detected. Fixed in Build 766

Update  (2024-07-17 Build 764)
 CadTools detects supported CAD versions into the list in Settings form.

Update  (2024-04-08 Build 763)
 Added support for AutoCAD 2025

Update  (2023-11-02 Build 762)
 Added support for ZWCAD 2024

Update  (2023-10-31 Build 761)
 Fixed bug in Cross Sections, small triangles edges sometimes was not recognized. This resulted in incorrect cross-section lines (to short, missing parts near triangle edges.

Update  (2023-06-07 Build 760)
 Added support for AutoCAD 2024.

Update  (2023-03-12 Build 759)
 Fixed support for AutoCAD 2023 that didn't work at all.

Update (2023-01-06 Build 758)
 Fixed issue in "Join 3DPolyline" using BricsCAD.

Update (2022-10-03 Build 757)
 Added support for ZWCAD 2023

Update (2022-10-01 Build 756)
 Fixed minor bug in "Draw from Coordinates"
Updated Help File
Changed layout in Settings Dialog

Update (2022-04-28 Build 755)
 Fixed bug in Blocks, Match Blocks With Lines (Drainage Network Evaluation)

Update (2022-04-25 Build 754)
 Added support for AutoCAD 2023

Update (2022-04-23 Build 753)
 Enhancement: Draw from Coordinates, Right click in Grid for inserting Zero is changed to any value.

Update (2022-04-08 Build 751)
 Bugfix: Exporting MText to Excel resulted in missing character (last character)

Update (2021-10-30 Build 750)
 Bugfix: View Surface Slope Direction, when using a scale factor arrows pointing in wrong direction (upwards)
Added: User setting for number of decimal places for contour annotations (Surface Contours command)

Update (2021-09-12 Build 749)
 Option to plot cross-sections in reverse direction.

Update (2021-08-09 Build 748)
 Added support for AutoCAD 2022 and BricsCAD.

Update (2021-07-10 Build 747)
 Changed behavior of annotation offset parameter in stationing command, zero offset now put the annotation text (insertion point) aligned to the alignment.

Update (2021-06-22 Build 746)
 Fixed bug while exporting to SpreadSheet (Lines/Area/Block/volume). This is only when you don't have Excel installed

Update (2021-05-31 Build 745)
 Added support for AutoCAD 2022

Update (2020-12-11 Build 744)
 CadTools internal SpreadSheet had problems with copying. Copy All worked but not Copy Selected. This is now fixed.

Update (2020-12-03 Build 743)
 The preview window in "Create Longitudinal Features" didn't show up.

Update (2020-11-24 Build 742)
 Exporting to spreadsheet with setting "Excel is not installed on this computer" did not showed CadTools internal SpreadSheet.

Update (2020-11-06 Build 741)
 Added support for ZWCAD 2021

Update (2020-10-27 Build 740)
 Fixed a delivery bug in previous update, I missed to exclude test code.

Update (2020-10-26 Build 739)
 Extended "Draw from Coordinates" with "Multiple Block insert" type and Layer overrides for type "Text at Point"
Revision History