MCD File Documentation
Summary
In its CAD sense, an MCD (Vectorworks/MiniCAD Drawing) file is the legacy native drawing of Vectorworks, the 2D/3D design program that began in 1985 as MiniCAD. It was the native format through Vectorworks 12 (2005); version 2008 replaced it with .vwx. Open a .mcd in Vectorworks (its MIME is application/octet-stream). Note: .mcd is also a PTC Mathcad worksheet, a different format.
Technical details
| Feature | Value |
|---|---|
| Full name | Vectorworks (MiniCAD) Drawing |
| File extension | .mcd |
| MIME type | application/octet-stream |
| Format type | Proprietary 2D/3D CAD drawing (binary) |
| Developer | Vectorworks, Inc. (Nemetschek); originally Diehl Graphsoft as MiniCAD |
| Introduced | MiniCAD 1985; used through Vectorworks 12 (2005) |
| Replaced by | .vwx (Vectorworks 2008 onward) |
| Open standard | No — proprietary, no published specification |
| Byte order | Binary (undocumented internal layout) |
| Magic number | None publicly documented; identify by extension and origin |
| Contains | Design layers, classes, 2D objects, 3D solids, symbols, hatches, textures |
| Editing app | Vectorworks (Windows and macOS) |
| Export formats | .vwx, PDF, .dwg, .dxf |
| Also used by | PTC Mathcad worksheet (Mathcad 15 and earlier) — unrelated format |
| Related extensions | .vwx, .mcl, .mcs, .dwg, .dxf |
| Specification | vectorworks.net |
What is an MCD file?
In the CAD sense used here, an .mcd file is a drawing made by Vectorworks, the 2D and 3D design application that started life in 1985 as MiniCAD from Diehl Graphsoft. Graphsoft was later acquired by Nemetschek, and the program was renamed Vectorworks. An .mcd file holds a complete design: technical drawings, floor plans, and 3D models for architecture, landscape, stage and entertainment, and product design. It is a proprietary binary format with no published specification.
MCD was the native format through Vectorworks 12, released in 2005. Vectorworks 2008 switched to a new native format, .vwx, and MCD became a legacy type that current versions can still open and convert. Because the format is tied to one program and undocumented, there is no third-party viewer for it the way eDrawings exists for SolidWorks: opening an .mcd in practice means running Vectorworks.
One identity point matters before anything else. The .mcd extension is shared by PTC Mathcad worksheets (Mathcad 15 and earlier), which store engineering math and formulas, not drawings, and open in Mathcad or Mathcad Prime. Many “how do I open an .mcd” questions are actually about Mathcad files. The quickest test is the file’s origin: a drawing from an architect or designer is the Vectorworks kind described below; a sheet of calculations from an engineer is the Mathcad kind.
What a Vectorworks MCD file holds
An .mcd is a single-document container for one Vectorworks drawing. Its internal byte layout is not public, but the design model it stores is well understood from the application. A drawing is organised around design layers and classes. Layers separate the drawing into stacked planes (for example, different floors of a building or stages of a design); classes are an orthogonal system of named categories that control the visibility and graphic attributes (line weight, colour, fill) of objects regardless of which layer they sit on. An object belongs to exactly one layer and one class.
Within those layers, the file records the drawing’s 2D objects (lines, polygons, arcs, dimensions, text, and symbol instances) and, when the document contains a model, its 3D objects (solids and surfaces). Vectorworks is a hybrid 2D/3D tool, so a single .mcd can carry both a 3D model and its associated 2D drawing views. The file also embeds resources: reusable symbols, hatch definitions, and textures stored once and referenced by the objects that use them, which keeps repeated elements compact.
Version lineage: MiniCAD, Vectorworks, and the switch to VWX
The format’s history explains a lot of the trouble people have opening old files. MiniCAD shipped in 1985 and evolved through several numbered releases before the product was rebranded Vectorworks. The .mcd extension carried through that rename and remained the native format up to Vectorworks 12 in 2005. Files written across that long span are not all identical: a MiniCAD-era .mcd and a Vectorworks 12 .mcd differ internally, even though they share an extension.
Vectorworks 2008 introduced .vwx as the new native format and demoted MCD to a legacy read-only concern. Modern Vectorworks opens most .mcd files directly, but a very old MiniCAD drawing sometimes will not upgrade cleanly in one step. The workaround is a stepping-stone: open the file in an intermediate Vectorworks version, save it, then open that result in the current release. This is why archives of pre-2008 drawings occasionally need more than one version of the software to migrate fully.
Getting a Vectorworks drawing out to other tools
Because MCD is proprietary, exchange goes through Vectorworks itself. The natural upgrade path is to open the legacy file and use Save As to write a current .vwx. For sharing with people who do not own the software, Vectorworks exports a fixed-layout PDF (a picture of the drawing, not editable CAD). For interchange with AutoCAD and other CAD systems, Vectorworks exports AutoCAD DWG or DXF, though some Vectorworks-specific objects simplify on the way out. There is no reliable non-Vectorworks converter for .mcd; AutoCAD cannot read the format directly, which is the usual reason a .mcd “won’t open” in it.
Note that .mcdx and .xmcd targets belong to Mathcad, not Vectorworks. They only make sense if your .mcd is actually a Mathcad worksheet, in which case Mathcad Prime’s legacy-worksheet converter handles the upgrade.
References
- Vectorworks — official site
- FileInfo — .MCD (MiniCAD/Vectorworks and Mathcad)
- PTC — moving from legacy Mathcad to Mathcad Prime
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