I keep seeing people in this thread lamenting that "There is no good way for LLMs to design/generate parametric STEP models yet", while I've spent the past 6 months working on this exact problem.

So, yesterday, I've had Astra build a moving assembly of Babbage's difference engine with it with 400+ parts and real parametric geometry, and you can also download the full STEP model assembly there.

https://aetheris-difference-engine-showcase.yuechenli.worker...

And here's a STEP file that I've had GPT reconstruct of a popular phone with exact parametric dimensions just from the 2D drawing, took like an hour:

https://github.com/yuechen-li-dev/Aetheris/blob/master/sampl...

Completely free and open source, you can use your own Claude/Codex to start vibe-coding and generate perfect STEP file right now.

So, no, it's not a matter of time on "when can AI do CAD", we are already here.

Sorry if I sound a little frustrated and a bit too self-promotion-y, but I just really want people who says "I wish this capability exists sometimes in the future" to know that it already does, and you can use it right now, for free.

this difference engine model has a lot of obvious flaws - the gears do not mesh with each other, the teeth directly overlap. the notches that are supposed to articulate to ratchet aren't actually engaging the teeth on the ratchet. the ratcheting mechanisms on the right are straight up just hovering in the air and are not attached to anything.

that's probably what people are talking about when they say it can't do CAD?