COTAFCO CAD

Inspiration

COTAFCO CAD started as a practical need: a cadastral drafting technician needed a faster way to handle coordinate conversion and repetitive AutoCAD workflows. What began as one ChatGPT-assisted command grew into a specialized AutoCAD plugin for cadastral and geospatial drafting.

What it does

COTAFCO CAD automates repetitive CAD tasks used in cadastral work, including coordinate workflows, construction-table style outputs, OCR-assisted coordinate extraction, KMZ export, licensing/update diagnostics, and preparation for document automation workflows such as urban boundary records.

The project focuses on real drafting problems: reducing manual steps, avoiding copy/paste errors, keeping deliverables consistent, and helping a domain expert turn field knowledge into working software.

How we built it with Codex

The project existed before Build Week as an early ChatGPT-assisted prototype. During Build Week, Codex helped move it from scattered manual iteration into a more integrated product workflow.

With Codex, we debugged environment problems, stabilized plugin execution, improved the automatic KMZ workflow, rebuilt the release/package process, generated installer and updater ZIPs, verified public distribution through Google Drive, and planned the next document-automation module around an AutoCAD act template.

Codex was especially useful because the builder is not a traditional software developer. It helped translate cadastral workflow knowledge into C#/.NET AutoCAD plugin implementation, packaging steps, diagnostics, and repeatable release procedures.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenges were working inside a legacy CAD environment, handling Windows/AutoCAD plugin behavior, debugging blocked executables, keeping installer/updater output consistent, and separating previous work from new Build Week improvements.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Turning a field workflow into a working AutoCAD plugin.
• Stabilizing OCR and coordinate-related workflows.
• Automating KMZ export for real cadastral drawings.
• Building a release process with installer, updater, and public distribution links.
• Using Codex as a multiplier for a non-traditional software builder.

What we learned

Domain expertise matters. Codex was most valuable when it could translate real cadastral drafting decisions into code, diagnostics, packaging steps, and repeatable procedures.

What's next for COTAFCO CAD

This is phase one. Future modules include guided urban and rural boundary records, smart act/form filling, temporary cadastral reference layers, viewport auto-scaling, surveying/earthwork workflows, drainage and utility-network support, and an optional AI assistant connector that can help users validate data and generate documents with explicit permission.

Built With

• .net
• autocad
• c#
• cadastral-workflows
• chatgpt
• geospatial
• google-drive
• gpt-5.6
• kmz
• ocr
• openai-codex
• windows-desktop-app