Parametric CAD/CAM for desktop CNC.

How it works

From an idea to a program for your machine, in one browser tab.

1. Draw it, with dimensions

   Sketch the part and give it real dimensions. Change a number later and everything that depends on it follows.

2. Watch it cut

   Add toolpaths and see the finished part in 3D, simulated from the same program your machine will run.

3. Send it to the machine

   RapidCAM checks the program on the way out, then gives you G-code for your controller or posts it to gSender or ncSender.

Why RapidCAM

The usual way costs two programs, two licences, and a drawing that stops being a design the moment it leaves the first one.

Open a tab. Start cutting.

No installer, no licence server, no account to have a look round. It runs in the browser — on the laptop in the workshop, on whatever machine you happen to be sitting at.

Pitch circle

80 mm

Hole size

8 mm

Change one number. The part follows.

Move from 6 mm ply to 12 and every joint re-solves itself. Tangency, symmetry, concentricity and equal lengths are held by a real constraint solver, so you are editing a design rather than redrawing it.

Drag them. This is a drawing of the Bolt Circle Flange example; in RapidCAM a real constraint solver does the work. Open the real flange in RapidCAM and change the same two numbers.

Sketch to G-code without leaving the page.

Geometry, stock, tools and toolpaths live in one document. Move a hole and the toolpath that cuts it moves with it — no export, no re-import, no wondering which version is the one on the machine.

Nothing phones home.

The solver, the toolpaths and the 3D preview all run on your own machine. Your drawing never leaves it unless you decide to publish it here.

It reads the G-code before your machine does.

Every program is checked on the way out: rapids skimming below the stock, a straight plunge at cutting feed, a path through a clamp. Better a dialog now than a broken cutter later.

A file that outlives the software.

Plain JSON against a published schema. Diff it, commit it, script it, open it in ten years — not a binary that only ever made sense to one program.

Works with the machine you have

RapidCAM posts for the controller your machine runs, not for a brand: pick the family in Machine Settings and the program follows it.

A new program deserves respect: run it once with the spindle off and the tool raised well above the work before the first real cut. RapidCAM checks it on the way out, and you are still the one at the machine. Running something that is not listed? Tell us.

What’s new

RapidCAM is updated often: 9 releases in the last 30 days, the latest (2.7.1) on 19 Oct. Here is what changed, in plain words.

Every release, with its download files, is on the releases page.

The .rcam format

A .rcam file is plain JSON with a published JSON Schema, designed so that people, scripts and AI tools can all author valid designs. These are its canonical URLs.

{
  "version": 3,
  "name": "Bolt Circle Flange",
  "displayUnit": "mm",
  "stockThickness": 8,
  "canvas": { "width": 150, "height": 130 },

  "variables": [
    { "name": "pcd", "expr": "80", "value": 80 },
    { "name": "holeDia", "expr": "8", "value": 8 }
  ],

  "dimensions": [
    { "type": "diameter", "value": 110, "driving": true }
    … 3 more dimensions
  ],

  "constraints": [
    { "type": "fixedPoint" }
    … 2 more constraints
  ],

  "entities": [
    … 8 circles, arcs and lines
  ],
  "patterns": [{ "kind": "circular", "count": 6 }]
}