NullCad

NullCad is a 2D CAD application purpose-built for cadastral surveying, built with Rust, egui, and a custom wgpu renderer. It is designed to provide a modern, efficient, and precise alternative to the big name CAD programs.

Most CAD software is designed for engineers with surveying being an afterthought or functionality added through seperate plugins that are never quite able to overcome the inherint limitations of the native DXF/DWG file format.

This book covers how to use NullCad day to day — navigation, drawing and modify tools, snapping, layers, the survey workflow, drafting and PDF output, import/export formats, and the plugin/automation systems — as well as the file format and internal architecture for anyone extending the application.

Where to start

• New to NullCad? Start with Installation and the Interface Overview.
• Setting up a survey project? See Survey Phases.
• Producing a plan of survey for lodgement? See Page Proxies & Viewports and PDF Export.
• Extending NullCad with scripts or an AI agent? See Lua Plugins and MCP Server.

Highlights

• Phase-based survey workflow with independent camera state and status tracking per phase.
• Full snap tracking for easy and efficient drawing and editing of survey geometry.
• Vector PDF export of drafting sheets, with viewports, sheet templates, and title-block substitution.
• Pure-Rust import/export for Shapefile, GeoJSON, DXF, and CSV, with optional GDAL support for KML, GeoPackage, MapInfo TAB, and FileGDB.
• Lua plugin system and an in-process MCP server for scripting and AI agent integration.
• ZIP-based .nullcad archive format with full operation history, undo audit trail, and embedded resources.

License

Copyright 2026. All rights reserved.