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LEOCAD(1) General Commands Manual LEOCAD(1)

LeoCAD - CAD program for LEGO models.

leocad [OPTIONS] [INFILE]

LeoCAD is a CAD program for creating virtual LEGO models. It has an easy to use interface and includes thousands of different parts in its library.

Below is a summary of all of the options that LeoCAD accepts. Many options have two equivalent names, one of which is a single letter preceded by -, and the other of which is a long name preceded by --. Brackets ([ and ]) indicate that an option takes an optional parameter.

Loads the project file infile


Set the parts library location.


Saves a picture to outfile.ext in the image format specified by ext and exits. If outfile is not given then the program will use a name based on infile. The file format is selected by ext and can be gif, bmp, png or jpg (if ext is not present then the default preferences format will be used).


Sets the width of the picture to width.


Sets the height of the picture to height.


Start saving pictures at the step time. Steps start at 1.


Save pictures until the step time.


Sets the active submodel to submodel.


Sets the active camera to camera.


Set the stud style. Valid values 0=Plain, 1=Thin Lines Logo, 2=Outline Logo, 3=Sharp Top Logo, 4=Rounded Top Logo, 5=Flattened Logo, 6=High Contrast, 7=High Contrast with Logo.


Sets the viewpoint to one of the predefined view angles.

Set the camera angles in degrees around the model.

Set the camera position, target and up vector using the LeoCAD coordinate system.

Set the camera position, target and up vector using the LDraw coordinate system.

Use an orthographic projection.

Set the vertical field of view used to render images.

Set the near and far clipping planes used to render images (1 <= near < far).

Render parts from prior steps faded.

Do not render parts from prior steps faded.

Color to use for rendering faded parts. (#AARRGGBB where AA, RR, GG, and BB are hexadecimal values for alpha, red, green, and blue respectively.)

Highlight parts in the steps they appear.

Do not highlight parts in the steps they appear.

--highlight-color color
Color to use to highlight parts, (#AARRGGBB where AA, RR, GG, and BB are hexadecimal values for alpha, red, green, and blue respectively.)


Select shading mode for rendering.

Set the with of the edge lines.

AntiAliasing sample size (1, 2, 4, or 8).


High contrast stud cylinder color.


High contrast edge color.


High contrast edge color for black parts.


High contrast edge color for dark color parts.


Enable automatically adjusted edge colors.

Set the near and far clipping planes used to render images (1 <= near < far).


Set the value to indicate a light or dark color.


Exports the model to wavefront format.

-3ds [outfile.3ds]

Exports the model to 3DS format.


Exports the model to COLLADA DAE format.


Creates an HTML page for the model.

Output version information and exit.

-?, --help
Display a brief usage synopsis and exit.

``LEOCAD_LIB'' may be set to the path of the parts library.


$ leocad car.lcd -i car.png -w 640 -h 480

This will start LeoCAD, load the file "car.lcd," create a png called "car.png" with a resolution of 640x480 and exit when done.

~/.config/LeoCAD Software/LeoCAD.conf
User preferences file

If you find any bugs please report them at https://github.com/leozide/leocad/issues

LeoCAD is written by Leonardo Zide <leozide@gmail.com>. You can visit the LeoCAD homepage at https://www.leocad.org/

This manual page was originally written by Patrick Mahoney <pat7@gmx.net>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). It has since been edited by others.

5 June 2021