TerraDraft adds short commands that do the repetitive parts of civil drafting for you: contour labels, parallel polylines, numbering, layers and drawing cleanup. Built by a working civil engineer and road designer.
Seven free tools for contours, parallel polylines, hatches, viewports and numbering. Tested on AutoCAD 2025.
Everything in Lite, plus labels that update with the contour, auto-sync parallel lines, default layers and batch cleanup. One-time purchase.
Most drafting time goes to small, repeated jobs: typing contour elevations, rotating labels, numbering blocks, switching layers, redrawing parallel lines after a change. None of it is design work, and all of it adds up.
TerraDraft turns those jobs into short commands. Lite is free and covers contours, parallel polylines, hatches, viewports and numbering. Pro adds labels that update when the contour changes, automatic parallel lines, default layers and batch drawing cleanup.
Seven groups of tools. Type the command in AutoCAD, or use the TerraDraft Lite ribbon tab.
CTT
What it does. Click a contour and get an elevation label placed on it, rotated to follow the contour and kept upright so it reads correctly. A background mask is switched on automatically.
Why you need it. Labelling contours by hand means typing every elevation and rotating every text. CTT does it in one click per contour. In Lite the label is plain text; in Pro it stays linked to the contour.
ACE
What it does. Set the elevation of many contours with one fence line. Enter the starting elevation and the step, draw a line across the contours, and each one receives the next value in order.
Why you need it. Contours traced from a scanned plan or imported from a PDF usually sit at elevation 0. They need real elevations before you can label them or build a surface. ACE replaces selecting and editing them one at a time.
MPLMPLSYNCMPLEDIT
What it does. Draw one centerline and get a set of parallel polylines at the offsets you choose, each with its own colour, width and linetype. A settings dialog controls the set. After you edit the centerline, MPLSYNC rebuilds the parallel lines.
Why you need it. AutoCAD’s MLINE is awkward to edit and rarely behaves in civil drawings. MPL gives you real polylines for pipes, walls, kerbs, edges of pavement or swales, and they stay arc-aware.
PLHT
What it does. Converts wide polylines into an outline plus an associative, annotative solid hatch. Select the wide polylines, and the original is replaced.
Why you need it. Wide polylines look fine until you plot at a different scale or need a true filled shape. A solid hatch scales with annotation and can be edited through its boundary.
VPO
What it does. From a layout tab, click a viewport and VPO draws a closed polyline in model space that outlines exactly the area that viewport shows. It handles clipped viewports and rotated views.
Why you need it. Key plans, sheet indexes and match-line planning all need the sheet limits shown in model space. Tracing them by hand is slow and easy to get wrong.
DFDBDAODBO
What it does. Four short commands for AutoCAD’s DRAWORDER: bring to front, send to back, bring above an object, send under an object.
Why you need it. A hatch hiding text is one of the most common drawing annoyances. These shortcuts fix it in two keystrokes instead of a command and a sub-option.
MNUMAUTONOTE
What it does. MNUM numbers a block attribute along a line you draw (001, 002, 003 and so on, with leading zeros). AUTONOTE numbers the paragraphs of a note by placing a notation block beside each one.
Why you need it. Numbering manholes, test pits, parking bays, keynotes and general notes by hand is slow, and it breaks as soon as something is added in the middle.
Everything in Lite, with more advanced versions of the contour and multi-polyline tools, plus four new tools.
CTTCTT (Multiple)
What it does. Labels stay linked to their contour. Change the contour elevation and the label text updates. Move the contour and the label follows. Multiple mode labels every contour a line crosses in one pass, each aligned to its contour.
Why you need it. Contour changes are the norm during grading design. Labels that update themselves remove the most error-prone step: finding and retyping every label after each revision.
CTHWCTBOT
What it does. The same linked label with an HW: or BOT: prefix, for high-water and bottom elevations. They update with the contour like normal labels.
Why you need it. Pond and swale drawings need these labels all the time. Typing the prefix each time is slow.
CTTPREFIXCTTSUFFIX
What it does. Set text that goes before or after the elevation on new labels, and optionally update every existing label at once.
Why you need it. Different clients and standards want different label formats. Change the format once instead of editing each label.
CTRCRRCTF
What it does. CTR refreshes the text of selected labels from their contours. CRR refreshes all labels linked to the contours you select. CTF flips selected labels by 180 degrees, and the flip is kept when the label later updates.
Why you need it. Keeps a drawing consistent after edits, and lets you turn a label the right way up where the automatic direction is not what you want.
CONTELTXT
What it does. Reads the number from each text or MTEXT label and assigns it as the elevation of the nearest selected contour.
Why you need it. Old drawings often have contour labels as text but flat geometry underneath. This converts the text into real elevations in one pass.
MPLMPLADDMPLONMPLOFFMPLEDIT
What it does. Everything in Lite, plus automatic rebuild: edit the centerline and the parallel lines update after the command ends. MPLADD converts existing polylines and lines into a set. Named presets can be saved, and each line of the set can have its own layer.
Why you need it. No more running a sync command after every edit, no redrawing existing linework, and layers set correctly from the start. A time saver on pipe, road edge and utility corridor drawings.
DEFLAYDEFLAYONDEFLAYOFF
What it does. Define rules such as “dimension commands use layer C-ANNO-DIMS”. When you start a matching command, TerraDraft switches to that layer and restores your previous layer when the command ends. It ships switched off, so nothing changes until you turn it on.
Why you need it. Wrong-layer objects are a classic source of CAD standards problems. Let the command pick the layer so you stop thinking about it.
XRCLEAN
What it does. Pick several drawings and run purge, audit, SETBYLAYER, overkill, zoom extents and save on all of them in one run. You choose the steps, and a confirmation screen lists exactly what will happen before it starts.
Why you need it. Cleaning drawings before issue or archiving is repetitive work. This turns an hour of opening, purging and saving into one command. It saves over the drawings, so always work on copies first.
ROTATEPOINTLABELS
What it does. For Civil 3D. Rotates the labels of the COGO points you select so they overlap each other as little as possible. You calibrate once from one sample label.
Why you need it. Dense survey points end up with colliding labels. Rotating them one by one on a topo plan takes a long time. Requires Civil 3D, and the whole run undoes in one step.
| Tool | Lite (free) | Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Contour labels (CTT) | Static text label | Dynamic label linked to contour, plus Multiple mode |
| HW / BOT labels, prefix and suffix, refresh and flip | — | Yes |
| Auto contour elevations (ACE) | Yes | Yes |
| Elevations from text (CONTELTXT) | — | Yes |
| Multi-polyline (MPL) | Manual sync with MPLSYNC | Auto-sync, MPLADD, presets, per-line layers |
| Polyline width to hatch (PLHT) | Yes | Yes |
| Viewport outline (VPO) | Yes | Yes |
| Draw order shortcuts (DF, DB, DAO, DBO) | Yes | Yes |
| Numbering (MNUM, AUTONOTE) | Yes | Yes |
| Default layers (DEFLAY) | — | Yes |
| Batch drawing cleanup (XRCLEAN) | — | Yes |
| COGO label optimizer (Civil 3D) | — | Yes |
| Price | Free | $34.99, one-time |
CTT, or open the TerraDraft ribbon tab.Not sure which edition you need? Start with Lite. It is free, and you can move to Pro later.
TerraDraft is a set of AutoLISP tools for AutoCAD and Civil 3D that replace repetitive drafting steps such as labelling contours, drawing parallel polylines, numbering blocks and cleaning drawings. It comes as a free Lite edition and a paid Pro edition.
Yes. TerraDraft Lite is a free download from Gumroad.
TerraDraft was built and tested on AutoCAD 2025 for Windows and is designed to run on releases from 2018 to 2026. It needs full AutoCAD. AutoCAD LT is not supported. Civil 3D is only needed for the ROTATEPOINTLABELS command.
No. Every tool except ROTATEPOINTLABELS works in plain AutoCAD. Civil 3D users can use it too, and ROTATEPOINTLABELS needs Civil 3D.
No. Install one edition at a time because they share the CTT and MPL command names. The Pro installer removes Lite.
No. TerraDraft is for Windows and full AutoCAD only.
Lite gives you the core tools: contour labels and elevations, multi-polylines with manual sync, polyline-to-hatch, viewport outlines, draw order shortcuts and numbering. Pro adds contour labels that update automatically, auto-sync multi-polylines, elevations from text, default layers, batch drawing cleanup and the Civil 3D COGO label optimizer.
The Pro licence is for one user on up to two of their own PCs.
Questions about TerraDraft? Use the contact page.
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