Open a DXF in your browser and turn its outlines into a real 3D part: closed contours become editable extrudes. Export DXF (R12 or R2000), STL or 3MF. Free.
Drop in a .dxf and its outlines become editable extrudes: real solids you can thicken, round, cut and print. Then export a 2D view back to DXF for your laser or CNC. This is a 3D modeler, not an AutoCAD drawing viewer, and the difference is the point.
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A DXF is a profile. Most of the work is what happens after it stops being flat.
Closed contours land as parametric extrude nodes, the same kind a sketch produces, with holes nested correctly inside their outers. Change the height, add a fillet, cut a pocket. It is a starting solid, not a frozen mesh.
A DXF can declare its units in its header, and OwlCAD reads that, so a drawing authored in inches arrives at size instead of 25.4× wrong. When the file declares nothing, OwlCAD says it assumed millimetres rather than guessing quietly.
Lines, polylines, circles, arcs, ellipses, splines and blocks, including nested, mirrored and arrayed inserts, all flattened out of their coordinate systems. Hatches and annotation text are not read, and the import tells you what it skipped so a thin result explains itself.
Emboss a logo onto a face, thicken a gasket profile, wrap a bracket around a supplied outline, or boolean the shape against parametric primitives. Everything stays non-destructive and undoable.
Any 2D view of your model — a flat projection or a slice through it — writes as DXF in R2000, or R12 for older laser and CNC controllers. The header declares millimetres, so it cuts at size. SVG export is there too.
True millimetres, printer profiles, auto-orient, watertight checks, and a filament weight-and-cost estimate, then export print-ready STL or 3MF for any slicer.
No download, no account needed: the file is read in your browser, so there is nothing to wait for.
It opens on your device, it is saved to your workspace as you work, and it exports back out in the format your slicer wants.
Your browser reads and renders the model itself, so it appears as soon as you drop it in — you are never queued behind anyone else’s upload, and the file does not travel anywhere before you can see it.
Most online viewers forget your file the moment you close the tab. OwlCAD keeps the model in your own workspace and syncs it as you work, so it is still there when you come back to this browser. Create a free account and it follows you to any device, and your projects dashboard lets you delete anything you no longer want.
When you are done, export STL, 3MF, OBJ, GLB or STEP — the format your slicer or your colleague actually needs, not a project file that only opens here.
No, and it is worth being clear about that. OwlCAD is a 3D modeler for printing and fabrication: it opens a DXF to turn its outlines into real geometry — extrude a laser-cut profile into a printable part, or model around a supplied contour — and writes DXF back out for a laser or CNC. If what you need is to read a drawing sheet with its layers, dimensions, and title block, a dedicated CAD viewer is the better tool.
The geometry: lines, polylines and lightweight polylines, circles, arcs, ellipses, splines, and blocks — including nested, mirrored, and arrayed INSERTs — flattened out of their coordinate systems. Hatches and the annotation entities (text, mtext, dimensions) are not read. After an import OwlCAD reports what it found and what it skipped, so a thin result tells you why instead of just looking empty.
Closed contours become editable extrude nodes — the same parametric extrude you get from a sketch, with holes nested correctly inside their outers. Change the height, round the edges, cut holes, or boolean it against other shapes. It is a starting solid, not a frozen mesh.
If the file says so, yes. A DXF can declare its own units in the $INSUNITS header variable, and OwlCAD reads it — so a drawing authored in inches arrives at the right size instead of 25.4× wrong. When a file declares nothing, OwlCAD tells you it had to assume millimetres rather than guessing silently.
Yes. Any 2D view of your model — a flat projection or a slice through it — exports as DXF, in R2000 for modern software or R12 for older laser and CNC controllers that expect it. The file declares millimetres in its header, so it cuts at size. SVG export is there too.
Yes. Opening a DXF, modeling with it, and exporting DXF, SVG, STL, 3MF, OBJ, GLB, or STEP are all free forever, in the browser, with nothing to install. Only AI generation is part of OwlCAD Pro.