ECAD Forge

Browser-based viewer for Altium, KiCad, Gerber, and CircuitJSON design files.

Open schematics, inspect PCB layouts and Gerber fabrication layers, and explore interactive 3D boards directly in your browser. Altium .SchDoc/.PcbDoc files, KiCad .kicad_pro, .kicad_sch, .kicad_pcb, folder selections, KiCad ZIP projects, Gerber/Excellon files, Gerber ZIP archives, and CircuitJSON .json files are supported and parsed locally.

Version 1.13.4 masks ordinary Gerber via annuli like covered tracks while keeping plated drill walls copper. Via-in-pad openings remain side-specific: only a surface whose larger host pad is opened by solder-mask artwork exposes the via copper. The app consumes gerber-toolkit 0.4.3 and pcb-scene3d-viewer 1.3.1 directly without app-owned geometry rules.

LIVE: https://ecadforge.app/

Features

• Client-side parsing for Altium, KiCad, Gerber/Excellon, and CircuitJSON files with no server-side preprocessing
• Bundled Altium and KiCad demo projects with preserved third-party license notices
• GitHub raw/blob URL loading for supported ECAD files, Gerber/Excellon files, CircuitJSON JSON, and KiCad project triplets
• Schematic SVG view derived from recovered record geometry, text, symbols, and highlightable nets
• PCB SVG view with recovered board outline, layer stack, fabrication layers, component placements, aligned and knockout PCB text, reset/fit viewport control, top/bottom component filters, in-board view settings, persistent diagnostic focus, optional rats-nest connectivity, trace-length budget labels, solder-mask/paste inspection layers, source-net group metadata, group/anchor-offset overlays, bounds measurement zoom/selection, clipped SVG/PNG bounds export, and highlightable nets where available
• BOM grouping from recovered component metadata
• Interactive 3D PCB viewer with pan, orbit, zoom, bare-board Gerber fabrication scenes with source-continuous profile/cutout topology and canonical plated-slot geometry, embedded STEP extraction, and companion-model lookup for STEP/STP, WRL/VRML, GLB/GLTF, STL, OBJ, and 3MF assets. Safe local GLTF BIN, OBJ MTL, and WRL texture companions resolve directly; remote model loading remains opt-in. Single-file PCB assembly export supports STEP, WRL, GLTF, or GLB with board, copper, silkscreen, pads, vias, resolved or fallback 3D components, material alpha/colors, and optional board-face artwork textures.
• WebMCP runtime and read-only tools for querying designs already loaded in the current session
• Worker-backed parse flow with one app-owned outer parser worker, automatic toolkit workers for direct callers, main-thread fallback, and a local SPICE simulation worker boundary that returns CircuitJSON experiment output
• KiCad browser workers accept the same public project entries as direct loading, including complete multi-file projects and binary companion assets; queued worker requests snapshot accepted input without app-side transport fields or compatibility adapters
• Runtime language switching with browser detection and Brazilian Portuguese support
• Converged parser, renderer, query, interaction, and scene APIs from altium-toolkit, kicad-toolkit, gerber-toolkit, and circuitjson-toolkit, with reusable CircuitJSON document contexts
• Normal intake calls the same common Parser and ProjectLoader contracts for every format; ZIP expansion, project context, and validation remain in the source libraries rather than app compatibility shims
• Independent toolkit project groups parse concurrently while their documents, diagnostics, and assets keep deterministic toolkit order
• CircuitJSON remains the shared document model for app state, BOM, query, diagnostics, and the fast KiCad 3D path. Altium and KiCad parsing also retains an explicit native extension so their source renderers can preserve exact schematic styling, wiring, text placement, and native PCB interaction fidelity without app-side conversion or copied legacy fields.
• Canonical documents returned through the parser worker's completed structured-clone boundary use CircuitJSON Toolkit's cooperative adoption API. The app explicitly transfers exclusive ownership of the browser-owned graph, which is validated and deeply frozen without another full extension copy, while large extension traversal, sealing, batch documents, and first render are separated by host scheduling opportunities. Direct, main-thread fallback, and compatibility inputs stay on the exact defensive context path, including altered-prototype and cross-realm binary values.
• The common default PCB path does not build interaction primitives while its toolbar is hidden and no measurement or diagnostic focus is active. Active toolbar, measurement, and diagnostic consumers share one prepared interaction model; common component-side tagging uses resolved document rows directly, while unresolved native renderer keys can request the compatibility fallback.
• Source-native rendering is selected through each toolkit's public extension resolver before the canonical fallback. Plain CircuitJSON documents continue to use the shared deterministic SVG renderer.
• Canonical CAD model metadata and document/session assets flow directly into pcb-scene3d-viewer without URL-promotion or resolver wrappers in the app. The viewer retains source.format and treats omitted CircuitJSON trace, pour, and via mask-opening flags as covered copper; explicit openings remain exposed.
• STEP rendering uses the installed @sunbox/occt-import-js JavaScript, WASM, and package-owned worker directly; local and static servers expose the same scoped package path without app-vendored copies or a custom worker
• Local and hosted Altium, KiCad, and CircuitJSON project parsing retains canonical model assets in full; directory companions and ZIP members keep their exact bytes, project-relative paths, and source identity
• KiCad ${KIPRJMOD} model references arrive as canonical cad_component rows linked to exact project asset paths. Multiple visible models retain separate rows; parsed board thickness determines top/bottom surface height, while board placement stays separate from model-local transforms
• Gerber ZIP detection claims only real fabrication packages, leaving KiCad ZIP projects on the KiCad loader path
• Local, folder, project, and session intake recognizes 3MF and .vrml as first-class companion-model formats before handing exact source bytes to the viewer
• Exact source paths keep same-basename model assets distinct while repeated placements and explicitly fetched assets share viewer-owned caches
• Local Express dev server in src/server.mjs

Project Structure

• altium-toolkit: printable-record extraction, normalized Altium parsers, schematic SVG, PCB SVG, BOM HTML, and complete non-interactive 3D scene-description utilities
• kicad-toolkit: KiCad 9 S-expression parsing, project loading, schematic/PCB normalization, BOM generation, renderers, and complete data-only 3D scene helpers
• gerber-toolkit: Gerber/Excellon project loading, ZIP expansion, fabrication-layer normalization, deterministic SVG rendering, bare-board 3D scene data, and PCB interaction helpers
• circuitjson-toolkit: CircuitJSON document loading plus local SPICE transient experiment helpers for standards-native board, assembly, and simulation data
• src/ui/: viewer shell and interaction controllers
• src/core/ecad/: app-owned format registry plus parser, renderer, and scene facades
• src/core/simulation/: app-owned simulation worker client and message handler
• src/core/webmcp/: loaded-session WebMCP inspection, privacy-safe usage diagnostics, and explicit agent feedback
• src/demo/: bundled demo project files plus source and license notices
• src/workers/ecad-parser.worker.mjs: off-main-thread native parsing
• src/workers/spice-simulation.worker.mjs: off-main-thread local SPICE transient simulation
• scripts/build-static-deploy.mjs: Apache/shared-hosting frontend artifact builder
• tests/: app state, server, interaction, and structure tests
• docs/: architecture, setup, testing, security, troubleshooting
• spec/: product scope and acceptance criteria

Documentation

• Getting Started
• Architecture
• Testing
• Security
• WebMCP
• 1.13.45 release notes
• 1.13.25 release notes
• 1.13.24 release notes
• 1.13.23 release notes
• Troubleshooting
• 1.13.4 release notes
• 1.13.3 release notes
• 1.13.2 release notes
• 1.13.1 release notes
• 1.13.0 release notes
• 1.12.0 release notes
• 1.11.0 release notes
• 1.10.4 release notes
• 1.10.3 release notes
• 1.10.2 release notes

Start

npm install
npm start

Open http://localhost:3000/ and load one or more native Altium .SchDoc/.PcbDoc files, KiCad .kicad_pro/.kicad_sch/.kicad_pcb files, KiCad project ZIPs, Gerber/Excellon files, Gerber ZIP archives, CircuitJSON .json files, or companion STEP/STP, WRL/VRML, GLB/GLTF, STL, OBJ, and 3MF files. KiCad projects can also be selected as folders from the header.

Demo projects are available at /demo/kicad, /demo/altium, /?demo=kicad, and /?demo=altium. GitHub-hosted files can be opened with /?url=<raw-or-github-blob-url> or /?github=owner/repo/path/to/file&ref=<optional-ref> when the remote host allows browser fetching. Share links can also include view=<tab>, document=<loaded-file-path>, component=<designator>, and net=<net-name> to restore the active tab, document, selected component, and selected net.

Production deployment is available at https://ecadforge.app/.

WebMCP

ECAD Forge uses native document.modelContext registration directly when available, preserving browser schemas, execution options, and annotations. Otherwise it loads @mcp-b/global with same-origin transport options as a fallback. MCP-B tab and iframe transports are installed only on that fallback path. It then registers read-only tools for the designs already loaded in the current session. Agents can list loaded designs, components, nets, search metadata, review coverage, audit metadata/connectivity issues, cross-reference schematic nets against PCB pads, compare schematic/PCB parity, query BOM rows, list component pins, query direct nets, list diagnostics, compare BOM/PCB coverage, query component pins, inspect PCB placements, PCB net geometry, board summaries, design rules, and fabrication-readiness signals, and trace extended connectivity without uploading files or scanning local paths. The adapter uses the current document.modelContext API. The app shell carries the production WebMCP origin-trial token for https://ecadforge.app/, and served/deployed responses apply the same-origin tools permissions policy. Netlist extraction, search validation, component grouping, and traversal rules are delegated to the Altium and KiCad toolkit query APIs; the app WebMCP layer owns session-level review, audit, BOM/component search, cross-reference, PCB inspection, focused inspection summaries, and pagination summaries.

Object-form WebMCP execution callbacks also forward the browser's optional AbortSignal separately from tool JSON. Pre-aborted app-owned and toolkit-backed queries stop before synchronous work begins without changing existing tool inputs or result shapes.

All tools declare consequentialHint: false alongside their read-only and untrusted-content hints. See WebMCP compatibility for current Chrome API changes and fallback limitations.

Use the Request support header button for public GitHub support requests. AI agents can discover reporting instructions in /llms.txt or prepare a GitHub draft with the prepare_issue_report WebMCP tool.

See WebMCP for tool names, arguments, examples, privacy constraints, and unsupported browser-only operations.

Deploy

npm run build:static

The static build writes .deploy-src/ with versioned browser module URLs and an Apache cache policy. The FTP workflow uploads that artifact to the LIVE document root.

Test

npm test

Parser, deterministic renderer, and non-interactive scene-data tests live in the shared toolkit repositories. This app test suite covers app state, server behavior, interaction controllers, and ECAD Forge integration.

Privacy-safe activation events are emitted through the optional centralized tracker when present. Event properties intentionally exclude file names, raw URLs, file contents, and other personal data.

Formatting

npm run format

License

This project is available under two licensing options.

1. Open-source license

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0-or-later).

You may use, modify, and distribute this project under the AGPL. If you modify the software and make it available to users over a network, the AGPL requires that those users can access the corresponding source code of the modified version.

2. Commercial/proprietary license

For use in closed-source, proprietary, or otherwise AGPL-incompatible products, a separate commercial license is required.

Commercial licensing contact: https://github.com/SunboX

Attribution / notices

Copyright (C) 2026 André Fiedler.

Copyright, license, attribution, and source-origin notices must be preserved as required by the AGPL and the notice files in this repository.

Documentation and non-code media are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC-BY-SA-4.0) where marked in .reuse/dep5. Package-manager dependencies retain their own licenses and notices. The installed OCCT importer preserves its LGPL notices and Open CASCADE exception under node_modules/@sunbox/occt-import-js/dist/; source links are recorded in NOTICE.md.