Skip to main content

Getting Started

At a high level, using AdaCAD involves the following steps:

  1. Open an AdaCAD Workspace: To start using AdaCAD, visit adacad.org. Looking for an older version of AdaCAD? Find it on the compare versions page. You can also learn more about the interface in our Reference section.

  2. Create a Draft: There are two ways you can make a draft in AdaCAD: Using traditional point paper drafting in our draft editor or by dataflow drafting in the workspace You can switch between these two modes by using the "design mode" toggle in the top bar.

  3. Weave the Draft: Once you have created a draft, weave it on your loom. You can export drafts from AdaCAD to upload to computerized looms such as the TC2 or AVL CompuDobby Loom. You can also manually follow patterns to setup analog looms.

  4. Contribute: We'd love to see what you made and to share it with the community. The best way to do this is to join the AdaCAD Discord Community and share it via the 'project sharing' channel. Alternatively, you can email your design and creation to unstabledesignlab@gmail.com or share it on Instagram by tagging #adacad.

tip

Prefer learning by doing? Pick a project in our tutorials section to follow and learn.

More Learning Resources​

To make AdaCAD accessible to weavers and other weave-curious folks, we do our best to develop content that shows both how to use AdaCAD and offers exciting examples and artifacts generated in our research lab. Here are a few other resources you might look to for instruction: