Photo to CAD

Start from the part you have instead of a blank sketch.

Over half of engineering time goes into redrawing parts that already exist somewhere, an estimated $400 billion a year of industry-wide effort spent reproducing geometry rather than designing it. Photo-to-CAD attacks precisely that: when the object exists and the drawing does not, the photograph is the fastest route back to editable geometry.

What "CAD" means here is worth being precise about, because the phrase gets stretched. This produces accurate 2D profiles as standard DXF, real ARC, CIRCLE and LINE entities you can dimension and constrain, not a parametric feature tree and not a solid model. That profile is the tedious part. Extruding, filleting and detailing it is the part CAD is already good at.

Who this is for

  • Hardware startups without a CAD operator

    Small teams where nobody's job title is 'draughtsman' but parts still need drawings.

  • Consultancies turning around client concepts

    A client photo becomes editable geometry the same day rather than the same week.

  • Anyone replacing or modifying an existing part

    Mounting plates, brackets, gaskets and panels are mostly profile work, and the profile is what a photo gives you.

Try it on your own image

Converting is free and unlimited, no account needed, and no charge for retuning until the result is right. You only pay when you download.

Output format

What are you converting?

Redraws rather than measures, so detail can shift. Check the preview.

Drop an image here or click to browse

PNG, JPG, or WebP · Max 10 MB

How to do it

  1. 1

    Photograph square to the part

    Plain background, even light, camera directly overhead. This matters more than camera quality: perspective distortion produces a wrong outline that no later step can correct.

  2. 2

    Convert and calibrate

    Choose Precise Outline for a photograph, set the scale from a dimension you have measured, and review the preview. Converting costs nothing, so iterate here rather than in CAD.

  3. 3

    Import and build on it

    Bring the DXF in as a sketch in Fusion 360, SolidWorks, Onshape or FreeCAD. Because circles and arcs come through as real entities, you can dimension and constrain them rather than tracing over a polyline soup.

Which format to take

DXF is the right format for CAD: it is the interchange format every package reads, and it preserves arcs and circles as entities. Take the SVG too if the same geometry needs to reach a laser cutter, both come from one conversion and one credit.

Image to DXFImage to SVG

What to check before you rely on it

  • One photograph, one view: you get a 2D profile, not a solid or a feature tree.
  • No parametric history. The DXF is geometry, and your CAD package is where it becomes a model.
  • Scale is user-set rather than automatically calibrated from a reference marker, so it is only as accurate as the measurement you type.
  • Draft angles, fillet radii and wall thicknesses are not recoverable from a flat photo.
  • Reflective, transparent and very dark parts are hard for background removal. Matte on contrasting works best.

Common questions

Do I get a 3D model?
No. A single photograph contains a single view, so what comes back is an accurate 2D profile. Extruding it into a solid is one operation in any CAD package once the profile is right, and the profile is the part that would otherwise have taken the afternoon.
Which CAD packages does it work with?
All of them, by design. The output is standard DXF rather than anything tied to one vendor, so it opens in Fusion 360, SolidWorks, AutoCAD, Onshape, FreeCAD and Rhino.
How accurate is it?
Geometrically it fits curves to a bounded tolerance and recovers circles and arcs as true entities. Dimensionally it is as accurate as the scale you set and the photograph you took. Shoot square, and calibrate against the longest dimension you have measured.

Read next

Start from the part you have instead of a blank sketch.

Convert an image