Shop Drawings. Done Faster.
EchoCAD Designs gives drafters and glazing contractors an easier way to produce accurate shop drawing elevations — complete with dimensions, door schedules, and hardware. Built to cut shop drawing production time in half.
Cut shop drawing time by up to 40%
Automate frame layouts, dimensioning, and schedules—no more manual drafting in AutoCAD.
7-day free trial · No credit card required
Faster Shop Drawings. Less Manual Work.
Purpose-built features for drafters and glazing contractors who need accurate shop drawings, fast.
Are the DXFs AutoCAD-Ready?
Generate fully dimensioned elevation DXFs with industry-standard dim styles. Paste directly into your master drawing — no cleanup required.
How do I create door & hardware schedules from an architect's PDF?
Upload your architect's PDF schedule and let AI extract door types and hardware sets automatically. Export to Excel in one click.
How do I import frame data in bulk using Excel?
Fill in frame data offline using our Excel template, upload it, and have an entire project's worth of frames ready to generate in seconds.
What frame shapes does EchoCAD support?
Rectangular, arch, rake, gable, semicircle, triangle, circle, and sunburst — every frame type your glazing shop encounters.
Can I generate plan and section views alongside my elevations?
Toggle on wall section and plan views to add professional plan cut diagrams alongside your elevations.
Is EchoCAD built specifically for glazing drafters?
Built from the ground up for glazing drafters. Skip the manual setup, the repetitive data entry, and the formatting headaches. Focus on getting accurate drawings out the door faster.
What's New
We ship improvements constantly. Here's what we've been working on.
Last updated:
- ✓Unique Horizontals — Control horizontal mullion placement independently per bay for both SF and CW RECT frames.
- ✓Insert Mullion — Add partial-span vertical or horizontal mullions within a specific bay/row zone, similar to cripples for doors.
- ✓Reverse Joinery — At door openings, the header runs through the door jamb and extends to the adjacent mullion per side. Cripple above header removed.
- ✓Sill Mullion Height — Control sill member face height independently from the sill pan (4", 4.5", 5", or custom).
- ✓Copy / Reflect — Mirror an existing frame horizontally to create its twin for side-by-side door/sidelite configurations.
- ✓Voice Input — Speak frame dimensions to populate fields automatically. Say "save" at the end to auto-advance to the next frame.
- ✓AutoCAD Block Library — Download pre-made AutoCAD blocks (doors, hardware, details) directly from the app.
- ✓Knee Wall & Dropped Head — Set per-bay sill and head heights for stepped curtain wall and storefront frames. The elevation, RO outline, sill pan, and caulk lines all update automatically.
- ✓Per-Bay Dimension Chain — Frames with bay height overrides now include a stacked vertical dim chain on the right side showing the knee wall height, RO, and head drop for each step.
- ✓True Door Clear Opening — Door widths entered for first and last bay openings now reflect the true clear opening. No more manually adding caulk — what you type is what gets drawn.
- ✓Door Transom Glass Fix — The glass bounding box in door transom areas now aligns precisely with the surrounding frame members, eliminating overlap at edge bays.
- ✓DLO Spacing Independence — Editing a bay DLO width now only shifts the adjacent mullion. Other bays stay locked in place — the last bay absorbs the remainder automatically.
- ✓Equal DLO Spacing — New EQ button in the DLO editor instantly distributes equal daylight openings across all bays or rows, calculated from actual frame geometry.
- ✓Equal CLs Calculator Fix — The Equal CLs button now correctly places centerlines at equal pitch intervals from the RO edge, matching architect schedule dimensions. Edge bay DLOs are correctly smaller than interior bays.
- ✓All 8 Frame Shapes — RECT, CIRCLE, RAKE, TRIANGLE, ARCH, SEMICIRCLE, GABLE, and SUNBURST shapes generating AutoCAD-ready DXF elevations.
- ✓Door Openings — Full door support with cripple mullions, transom glass, and header dims across all storefront and curtain wall systems.
- ✓Door & Hardware Schedules — PDF schedule import via AI parsing, with Excel export for AutoCAD Data Link.
- ✓Plan & Wall Section Views — Toggle plan view and wall section alongside the elevation, with adjustable CW depth.
- ✓Corner Frame Caulk Control — Null out the caulk joint on either jamb for 90° corner frames, with adjustable corner mullion face width.
Simple, Transparent Pricing
7-day free trial — no credit card required.
Monthly
Billed monthly. Cancel anytime.
- Full access to all features
- Unlimited projects & frames
- 7-day free trial
Annual
Save 20% — just $12/month billed annually.
- Full access to all features
- Unlimited projects & frames
- 7-day free trial
What Drafters Are Saying
Real feedback from glazing contractors and drafters using EchoCAD every day.
“We cut our shop drawing time from 4 hours down to under 45 minutes per frame set. The DXF pastes right into our master drawing with no cleanup. It just works.”
Mike T.
Project Manager — Commercial Glazing Contractor
“The door and hardware schedule import alone saves me an hour every submittal. I upload the architect’s PDF and the whole schedule is ready to export. That used to be all manual.”
Jason R.
Glazing Drafter — Storefront & Curtain Wall
“Finally a tool that actually understands glazing. It knows what a cripple mullion is, handles reverse joinery, gets the RO dimensions right. No one else has built this for our trade.”
Sandra K.
Estimator & Drafter — Architectural Glazing
Storefront vs. Curtain Wall: What’s the Difference?
Two common glazing systems that look similar but serve very different purposes. Choosing the right one impacts cost, performance, and constructability.
Storefront Systems
Storefront is typically used for ground-floor applications and low-rise buildings. It’s designed to be installed between floor slabs, meaning it carries its own weight but does not span multiple floors. Because of this, storefront systems are more cost-effective and faster to install. They’re ideal for retail spaces, offices, and entrances where structural movement and wind loads are relatively minimal.
Kawneer Trifab 451 Series →Curtain Wall Systems
Curtain wall is engineered for multi-story applications. It hangs from the building structure and spans vertically across multiple floors, requiring more robust design to handle wind loads, deflection, and thermal movement. Curtain wall systems involve more complex engineering, anchoring, and fabrication—which increases both cost and coordination requirements—but they’re essential for mid- to high-rise construction.
Kawneer 1600 Wall System 1 →Common Questions
Everything glazing contractors ask before getting started.
What is EchoCAD Designs?
EchoCAD Designs is shop drawing elevation software built for glazing contractors and architectural drafters. It generates AutoCAD-ready DXF files with accurate dimensions, door schedules, and hardware, helping reduce production time by up to 50%.
What types of glazing systems does EchoCAD support?
EchoCAD supports both storefront and curtain wall systems, with eight frame shape options: rectangular, arch, rake, gable, semicircle, triangle, circle, and sunburst. It also accommodates door openings, cripple mullions, corner conditions, bay height variations, custom horizontal mullion placement, and reverse joinery configurations.
Can I import door and hardware schedules from an architect's PDF?
Yes. EchoCAD uses AI to extract door types and hardware sets directly from architect-issued PDFs, then exports the structured schedule to Excel for seamless use with AutoCAD Data Link—eliminating manual data entry.
Do the generated DXF files work directly in AutoCAD?
Yes. EchoCAD generates DXF files using industry-standard dimension styles (SHOP, SHOP_RO, SHOP_DLO) that integrate directly into AutoCAD. Simply paste them into your master drawing—no cleanup or reformatting required.
How much does EchoCAD Designs cost?
EchoCAD Designs is $14.99/month or $144/year (equivalent to $12/month — save 20%). Both plans include full feature access and unlimited projects and frames. A 7-day free trial is available with no credit card required.
Does EchoCAD work for curtain wall engineering calculations?
EchoCAD includes a Curtain Wall Structural Pre-Check tool for Kawneer 1600 System 1 mullions, based on ASCE 7-16 wind load methodology. It provides a PASS/FAIL result with a downloadable PDF summary. This tool is intended for preliminary sizing only and is not a substitute for a PE-stamped engineering analysis.
How do I generate a shop drawing with EchoCAD?
Create a project, enter frame dimensions and mullion centerlines, then configure door openings and glass rows. Click Generate All, and EchoCAD will produce fully dimensioned DXF elevations for each frame. Open the files in AutoCAD, then copy and paste them directly into your master drawing.
Built from the Field Up
Darrin Etheridge
Founder, Drafter & Glazing Professional
Darrin Etheridge is the founder of EchoCAD Designs and an owner of Nortex Glass & Mirror, a glazing contractor serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area. With 15+ years of hands-on experience producing storefront and curtain wall shop drawings, he understands exactly where time is lost in the drafting process.
EchoCAD Designs was built to eliminate those bottlenecks—automating frame elevations, reducing manual dimensioning in AutoCAD, and removing the need to re-enter door and hardware data. The result is a faster, more efficient workflow that helps drafters and glazing contractors produce accurate shop drawings in a fraction of the time.
View LinkedIn ProfileNot ready for the software? We've got you covered.
Our team provides comprehensive shop drawing production services tailored for glazing contractors who require fast turnaround without the need for additional setup.
Simply submit your architectural plans, and we will manage the entire process. You will receive a complete, professionally prepared PDF shop drawing package, ready for submittal.
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