![\"ShapeCraft](\"https:\/\/jackharvest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/shapecraft-icon.png\"){kind=icon}
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nSo I built one. ShapeCraft<\/strong> is a free, open-source direct-modeling CAD app for macOS, Windows and Linux. Your projects stay on your computer. There’s no account, no seats, no limits, and it opens the files you already have. It’s an alpha, but it’s real: I’ve been designing actual parts with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Draw a profile, and type a size whenever you like: you never have to stop and open a box for it. Then push and pull faces until the part looks right. Fillets, chamfers, shells, booleans, patterns and the rest are all where your hands expect them, with a small card on the canvas holding every setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Direct modeling usually means giving up the history. Not here. Every step stays in the History list, and every one of them can be opened again. Change a number and the part rebuilds. Pattern an arm around a hub, go back and rotate the original, and every copy swings with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n STEP, IGES, Parasolid XT, STL, 3MF, OBJ and I can’t stand apps that make you go hunting on a website for the next version, so ShapeCraft doesn’t. It checks for a new version when it starts and once a day, downloads it quietly in the background, and checks it against the release’s published checksums. A small note in the corner tells you when it’s ready. When you close the app it asks whether to install it then and there (or you can tell it to just always do that), and it saves your work first. The only thing it ever contacts on its own is its own release page on GitHub, and nothing about you or your projects is sent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Three short tutorials are built in: a phone stand, a pencil cup and a key tag. Each step starts from a fresh scene, shows only the tools it needs, and lights up Continue when you’ve got it. They’re the fastest way to see how it all hangs together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every menu item, tool and key in ShapeCraft is a command, and the same commands are reachable from a command-line tool, a JSON control channel and a built-in MCP server. That means an AI assistant can model alongside you while you watch, or a script can build and render parts with no window at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSketch it, pull it, round it off<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Sketching](\"https:\/\/jackharvest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/shapecraft-sketch.gif\")
![\"Pushing](\"https:\/\/jackharvest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/shapecraft-extrude.gif\")
![\"Rounding](\"https:\/\/jackharvest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/shapecraft-fillet.gif\")
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Nothing gets locked in<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/jackharvest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/shapecraft-pattern.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nIt opens what you already have<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
.shapr<\/code> projects all open and save. DXF and SVG come in as sketches. Drawings go out as PDF, SVG, DXF or DWG. Projects are plain folders on your disk (a small JSON file plus a STEP file), so you’re never stuck with ShapeCraft just to get your own work back.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt keeps itself up to date<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Learn it in about seven minutes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"ShapeCraft](\"https:\/\/jackharvest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/shapecraft-tutorials.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nFor the tinkerers: scripts and AI agents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Getting started<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/jackharvest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/shapecraft-workspace.jpg\")
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