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Text-to-CAD

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Re: Text-to-CAD

#61

Post by kragen »

iancmceachern wrote: post #45
kragen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i've definitely used 2-d cad programs that can't handle 3-d, and 3-d cad programs that are at best anemic for making 2-d drawings they're not one and the same, although some programs are capable enough to do both

Those sound like terrible CAD programs that aren't terribly usable for real work. I don't know how I'd do my job with them. Proper modern 3d CAD systems like Solidworks, Catia, Creo (was ProE), Fusion360, Inventory, etc. have super robust 2d drawing and export functionality. If they didn't we couldn't make the built world the way we have. It's the same for 2d packages like Autocad. You can draw in 3d in Autocad, but…

in some cases, it was because the programs you're naming didn't exist at the time, except for autocad, which didn't have useful 3-d functionality

in other cases, because the 'tools that don't work' from your point of view can do things in minutes that would take hours in those other programs, which i don't have in any case. blender, for example, is terrible at making 2-d dimensioned drawings compared to something like solidworks, but you can model things in blender nobody has ever been able to model in solidworks, and then you can 3-d print them. and, though solidworks can do everything openscad can, there are things that are easy to do in openscad which are a real pain in solidworks. but openscad is also utterly terrible at 2-d drawings

Re: Text-to-CAD

#62

Post by stevage »

optshun wrote: post #39
batch12 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I have struggled with this when building services that need to store a user's data or manage a user identity. I'd prefer to not collect an email address. For me it comes down to whether or not I need to support features that most users expect like resetting an account password or notifying the user about some event.

I get it, and labor on the question as well with the tools I make. The problems you present seem easily managed with an option to sign up while limiting certain use cases to those using the service anonymously. I like a limited local first design, and a “demo login” with a simulated fully featured account that I feel allow a person to make the decision to share a piece of their identity with our product without any s…

Do services like mailinator still exist? Temporary emails that you can use then throw away if there's no pay-off?

Re: Text-to-CAD

#63

Post by stevage »

Animats wrote: post #26

Is the site working? It accepts input, but the windows just show "Generating", even though the message "You are all caught up" appears.

Yeah it did that in FF for me. Chrome worked.

Re: Text-to-CAD

#64

Post by tpmoney »

rjsw wrote: post #23
regularfry wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says they're generating a STEP file, and that's just a text format. Fine-tuned LLM would be my guess.

Most programming language source is just text, how often does GitHub Copilot get things wrong when generating code fragments? There is an ISO directive to not use any of their standards when training an LLM, would be interested to know what this group has done.

>There is an ISO directive to not use any of their standards when training an LLM

What? This seems mind bogglingly short sighted. You would thing a standards body of all places would want AIs outputting standards compliant output.

Re: Text-to-CAD

#65

Post by patkin14 »

dugite-code wrote: post #5

When ever I see CAD mentioned on hackernews it's always 3D and never the more ubiquitous (in the construction industry) 2D documentation CAD. I wonder if this would be able to generate 2D vector files.

We are doing this at drafterinc.com, automating 2D documentation from the 3D model. Let me know if you want to learn more

Re: Text-to-CAD

#66

Post by patkin14 »

iancmceachern wrote: post #36
dugite-code wrote: post #5

When ever I see CAD mentioned on hackernews it's always 3D and never the more ubiquitous (in the construction industry) 2D documentation CAD. I wonder if this would be able to generate 2D vector files.

They're one and the same. We use 3d CAD to generate 2d drawings, that's the standard way 3d cad is used, to generate 2d drawings that let you make stuff. Many people get 3d modeling like for games or computer graphics confused with CAD, which is different. CAD is fundamentally 2d and 3d in nature both, as a function of how we use it to make parts

Right, but I think the point is that the 2D can often be just as tedious to create as the 3D (and less enjoyable) but it gets less attention. Tools like this take for granted 2D documentation, not to mention the ability of the part to be fabricated reasonably through a standard process (CNC, injection molding, etc.)

Re: Text-to-CAD

#67

Post by iancmceachern »

kragen wrote: post #61
iancmceachern wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those sound like terrible CAD programs that aren't terribly usable for real work. I don't know how I'd do my job with them. Proper modern 3d CAD systems like Solidworks, Catia, Creo (was ProE), Fusion360, Inventory, etc. have super robust 2d drawing and export functionality. If they didn't we couldn't make the built world the way we have. It's the same for 2d packages like Autocad. You can draw in 3d in Autocad, but…

in some cases, it was because the programs you're naming didn't exist at the time, except for autocad, which didn't have useful 3-d functionality in other cases, because the 'tools that don't work' from your point of view can do things in minutes that would take hours in those other programs, which i don't have in any case. blender, for example, is terrible at making 2-d dimensioned drawings compared to something lik…

Thank you.

Blender is definitely the wrong tool for this kind of job. It's a graphics tool, not a CAD tool.

A drafter may use a pen, but that doesn't mean a calligraphy pen will do.

Re: Text-to-CAD

#68

Post by iancmceachern »

BillyTheMage wrote: post #58
liotier wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That a CAD program can only handle 2D doesn't mean that it doesn't describe 3D. Even when plans where physical large format blueprints, 2D, the product they described was of course always 3D. In French, the draughtsman was called a "dessinateur projeteur" - as projecting the 3D objects to a 2D plane (the plan !) was his core skill.

Seems like a massive waste of time to me, like hours vs seconds kind of waste of time. With 3D CAD, if I have a top view of a part and want to add a side view, it's like 3 clicks to just... make it exist. All views are derived from the 3D part/assembly, there's no effort needed to make new views pop into existence. Maybe I'm out of date on 2D CAD knowledge, but from what I remember you'd literally have to re-sketch t…

Exact this. I can design parts in solidworks in a few minutes, drawings included, that would take much longer to draw in autocad.

Re: Text-to-CAD

#69

Post by kragen »

iancmceachern wrote: post #67
kragen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in some cases, it was because the programs you're naming didn't exist at the time, except for autocad, which didn't have useful 3-d functionality in other cases, because the 'tools that don't work' from your point of view can do things in minutes that would take hours in those other programs, which i don't have in any case. blender, for example, is terrible at making 2-d dimensioned drawings compared to something lik…

Thank you. Blender is definitely the wrong tool for this kind of job. It's a graphics tool, not a CAD tool. A drafter may use a pen, but that doesn't mean a calligraphy pen will do.

depends on what you're designing and what kinds of products you need out of your cad program

Re: Text-to-CAD

#70

Post by swagmoney1606 »

causality0 wrote: post #25

I'm really looking forward to the future of this area, especially parallel developments in image-to-CAD. It would be incredible to get an accurate model by taking a couple of photos and then inputting measurements. Sure, you can 3D-scan something, but that makes a messy point cloud when real world objects are mostly make out of primitives that could be far more exactly duplicated.

Same here, I've been doing chatGPT -> scad or blender scripts, but it ain't the same at all
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