KatieCAD — electrical CAD for switchgear and building installation
Open-source electrical CAD for switchgear construction, distribution boards and building installation, written with Python and Tkinter.
KatieCAD covers the workflow of an electrical project: circuit diagrams across several sheets, devices connected by wires, cross references and device designations generated on its own, and the documentation at the push of a button. Beside that it is a full 2D CAD with simple 3D modelling, so a drawing without a project is possible as well.
- Latest release
- Version v1.1.7, released 2026-11-13
- License
- BSD-3-Clause
- Written in
- Python
- Repository
- github.com/Merecete/KatieCAD
21 stars · 4 forks · main language Python
Downloads
v1.1.7 (Released: 2026-11-13)
Windows, 64-bit, installer
KatieCAD-Setup_v1.1.7.exe
Size: 33,112,206 Byte (31.6, MiB)
SHA-256 checksum: 7e192aa90bd54802dbf03ca0079aa48d77e143f7e8f5ea238c19ceb062140331
Linux, 64-bit, .deb for Debian and Ubuntu
KatieCAD-Linux-x86_64_v1.1.7.deb
Size: 40,679,168 Byte (38.8, MiB)
SHA-256 checksum: 6fd22be1ff40783d53126210c3ae9f1b6e541f42d38bcae944007a001df96f62
Linux, 64-bit, archive for any distribution
KatieCAD-Linux-x86_64_v1.1.7.tar.xz
Size: 49,237,644 Byte (47.0, MiB)
SHA-256 checksum: 5b8f022ec32d3078cab1ca7c24ffdf5212507d4d3d869c86a2463df5dff062bb
macOS for Apple Silicon, disk image
KatieCAD-macOS-arm_64_v1.1.7.dmg
Size: 39,817,413 Byte (38.0, MiB)
SHA-256 checksum: cea83d5e9056830e78d626208d24e72768ce3527e042f736c2f0e68eac7f1fb4
These files are served by GitHub, not by merecete.org. Ordinary browsers follow the redirect there without problems; for Violyx use the store instead.
The checksum is a reference for people: the Violyx installer checks the structure of a package, not its checksum. Compare it with sha256sum file (Linux), certutil -hashfile file SHA256 (Windows) or shasum -a 256 file (macOS).
| Latest release | Released |
|---|---|
| v1.1.6 | 2026-11-10 |
| v1.1.5 | 2026-11-09 |
| v1.1.4 | 2026-11-05 |
| v1.1.3 | 2026-11-03 |
| v1.1.2 | 2026-11-01 |
| v1.1.1 | 2026-10-30 |
Electrical engineering
- Projects with several sheets, edited side by side, with title blocks and automatic fields
- Wires, pins and junctions: T-pieces, corners and crossings, with or without dot; wires are traced across sheets
- Cross references between sheets (outgoing and incoming)
- Devices with electrical mask: designation (IND), type (TYP) and function (PER), main and auxiliary contacts, automatic device references
- Terminals and cables, coordinate field, automatic wiring of connected points
- Symbol library with about 40 standard symbols (contactors, relays, fuses, switches, motors, transformers) plus your own blocks as *.katieblock with a block browser
- Documentation generator: cover sheet, table of contents, device list, terminal plan, cable plan, with customisable columns, CSV export and PDF output
General CAD
- Drawing tools: line, polyline, circle, arc, ellipse, spline, rectangle, text, hatching
- Editing tools: move, copy, rotate, stretch, array, trim, break, fillet and chamfer, offset, grip editing, selection windows
- Object snap for endpoints, midpoints, centres, intersections, quadrants, perpendicular and nearest points, plus ortho mode and typed input such as 500,1000 or @dx,dy or length<angle
- Layers and styles: layer management, line types, line weights, element colours
- Dimensions: linear, aligned, radius, diameter, distance measuring, switchable decimal separator
- Layout view with paper space, viewports, standard scales and title block; DXF import and export via ezdxf, DWG import via ezdwg
- Interface in German, English and Spanish, switchable while running; freely dockable toolbars for tools, electrical and 3D
Simple 3D
- 3D view in the same window (wireframe, orthographic or perspective) with view cube, orbit, pan, zoom and a grid on the work plane
- Bodies: box, cylinder, cone, pyramid and sphere, sizes editable afterwards; pull up 2D shapes, add bores and pockets
- Drawing directly on faces with the normal tools, with highlighted faces, visible snap markers, ortho and typed values
- Rotation about any axis, rounded edges, relocatable pivot point, 3D dimensions, 3D text and distance measuring in space
- 3D blocks to group bodies; hidden cut-outs are shown dashed in the 2D view
- A viewport in the layout can be shown as a 3D view, printed to scale or exported as PDF
Good to know
- Requires Python 3.10 with Tkinter to run from source; it uses ezdxf for DXF, ezdwg for DWG, Pillow for images and pypdf for PDF output.
- The macOS disk image is built for Apple Silicon (arm64). Windows and Linux builds are for 64-bit x86.
- Installed programs: a Windows installer, a .deb package for Debian and Ubuntu and a plain .tar.xz archive for other Linux distributions.
- The interface is switchable between German, English and Spanish while the program runs.
- KatieCAD is a desktop program. It does not run inside Violyx; for programs on Violyx see the store.