The real power with these kinds of tools isn’t prompting one shotted models but giving agents the ability to do the full workflow. You give them a description of the part and how it’s supposed to mate with parts from McMaster, Misumi, existing parts libraries, etc and the agent downloads the models, asks any clarifying questions to clear up ambiguities (using available part configurations to provide options when applicable), uses measurement tools to validate the design, provide material details for FEA, read and use PDF drawings/datasheets, and so on.

At least, that’s the theory. The problem is that none of the existing CAD tools (almost all exclusively built on Parasolid) are set up to support agentic workflows. None have proper text based representations, with the possible exception of OnShape’s feature script which is too undocumented and proprietary to be of much use. Even if it was supported, Parasolid isn’t set up to provide the kind of detailed error reporting needed to provide agent feedback.

I’ve been experimenting with this in ECAD by giving agents the ability to edit Altium files directly and it’s been working very well (even with footprint drawings!), but my attempts to do it with MCAD have fallen flat on their face because it’d require developing a geometric kernel from scratch with this workflow in mind.

Completely agree and we're exploring a number of modalities. You can actually select edges, faces and specific features to give that context to the model.

It is quite impressive putting in a raw prompt and watching the model just one-shot it though: https://x.com/adamdotnew/status/2050264512230719980?s=20

Worc.dev might be for you. I might call it Jupyter for engineers. Founder is a Mechanical

I seem to see one or two of these CAD projects a week. It’s cool, but the real value is design automation specific to my problem domain. Modeling isn’t usually that hard if you’re comfortable with the software. It would probably take as long to just think about what you need. I find more difficulty in maintaining coherence in complex projects that doesn’t involve me forcing a whole team to go all in on some stupid PaaS. A tip for founders: if you’re adding steps to the work process, you’re not helping.

Could be camera and canvas to CAD - be more apt for your use case? Something akin to minority report + AI?

Asking seriously.

Context: Have some overlapping interest in the space because I am prototyping a camera based edge device that allows for AR/AI interactions.

Isn't AutoLISP the traditional answer here?

Or these days, Dynamo?

Lol which neighbour? That's so random

We can build this!

We should do better at clarifying this! So in our opensource web app (https://github.com/Adam-CAD/CADAM), you can generate 3D mesh files by clicking mesh on the prompt box. We dubbed this "creative generations" but it should be clearer

We are using a CAD as code approach! Like I said in the post we heavily leverage FeatureScript to drive Onshape and Python to drive Fusion

We've worked with PTC the last few weeks to up rate limits for our users! They have 10x rate limits so users never hit 429s

As far as sketch constraints go we are currently working on making this robust!

Calls that do NOT count toward API limits:

Calls made with OAuth2 via applications that are publicly available in the Onshape App Store

https://onshape-public.github.io/docs/auth/limits/

So it should be ok ?

Posing OpenSCAD as an alternative to the likes of Fusion is like posing MS Paint as an alternative to Photoshop. It's not even the same class of tool.

Whilst I disagree with you (reasons mentioned in the post above), we actually have done quite a bit of work with OpenSCAD!!

See our opensource text to cad editor: https://github.com/Adam-CAD/CADAM

Having worked in CAD for over a decade previously, I think the users want a product surface, and the people paying for the engineers time want a reliable trainable solution that will exist exactly as it is today in five years. They are happy to pay for it in monthly installments.

This is a separate dimension to alternative high quality modeling solutions alone.

Now, some of the users especially are _proud_ of their product specific skill set. They don't _want_ to switch a package.

And - it's much easier to get professional engineers to use extensions to packages their engineering office already uses.

And this comes before any technical side-by-side feature comparison.

In programming the best tools are open source. Nobody is using a closed source compiler anymore, for example. That can lead to an assumption the same is true in every domain. But it's not true. Closed source commercial CAD software absolutely blows the open source stuff out of the water.

OpenSCAD is a cool project and can be useful, but if you believe it's a "superior tool" to professional CAD packages like Solidworks or Fusion360, you must not have used them.

The pro software does things that are impossible or clunky in the OSS alternatives. One I frequently used in SolidWorks: loft with guide curves. SolveSpace and OpenSCAD don't even attempt to support lofts. FreeCAD does but doesn't do guide curves, so you're stuck adding more intermediate profiles to make up for that, and it's horribly easy to get your loft twisted where it's not connecting the right vertices.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very appreciative of the FOSS options, and I do get a lot of use out of them at home for small projects. I especially love SolveSpace, it is beautiful software, well thought out, fast, and its feature set is enough for 80% of my projects. But there are definitely some CAD tasks like designing a car hood or an ergonomic handle, where the FOSS software just doesn't match commercial for modeling capability. And that is not even getting into all the stuff it can do beyond modeling like FEA and CAM.

You won’t be taken seriously if you push OpenSCAD - it’s simply not a tool that professionals will adopt due to not doing Breps. I think the recent progress of FreeCAD and its spin-off libraries cadquery and build123d will be better to push.

Thanks for sharing. OpenSCAD skills seems like a great idea.

Get back to us when you've used OpenSCAD to design and build something like an airplane.

>when there are free open-source alternatives like OpenSCAD.

As much as I agree with the fact that they should have built that tool for free open-source alternatives first and foremost, OpenSCAD is not the right choice.

OpenSCAD is a fantastic tool to whip together a box for your hobby electronics project, but doing serious professional CAD models ... it's just not in the same league as fusion, onshape, and freecad (as hideous as FreeCAD's UI may be).

Which is your CAD? We also have an opensource version that we actively maintain: https://github.com/Adam-CAD/CADAM

how come?

I had some success with using Claude in conjunction with my oscilloscope and spice simulations. I think it is an under explored space so far.

In case you are interested: https://lucasgerads.com/blog/lecroy-mcp-spice-demo/

I will post more updates soon.

I largely agree with your friend. There's a big difference between it being possible, and it being adopted. A startup could come out with cutting edge AI integrated eCAD tools tomorrow, and ten years from now Apple will still be using Cadence to design the iPhone.

Basically, unless the legacy eCAD companies decide to add it themselves, there's too much pain involved in switching tools — and even with that caveat, Cadence specifically is too much of a dinosaur to integrate it effectively anyway.

That said, there's a big distinction depending on whether your friend works primarily on the schematic or layout side.

The new models that have come out can now see

People are trying, but it's not here because it's a multi-dimensional problem space where there are local optimums but often no perfect solution and 'good enough' might only be judged through practical testing, integration, or supply chain realities which are at best predictable and often emergent. You can't always foresee why a design will fail until it's 80% done and then you have to go back 20% to solve it another way. This is particularly the case with power, interface, budget, thermal, EMI, radio, optical, spatial, supply chain, firmware, HR, regulatory, deployed unit, or assembly process constrained designs. Turns out that's most non-trivial designs.