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Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

formas.ai

31–40 of 87 posts

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#31
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. As a mechanical engineer, CAD is only half of the design process. The other half is actually building and assembling your design and testing/debugging what you've created. You still need the mechanical knowledge and intuition to take something in the physical world, figure out why it doesn't work, and apply that to the CAD design to improve it. It would be incredible to have AI help me model faster,…

None of the things you list in the "other half" are out of reach for AI. Also: disagree about the lack of validation loop: a) AI can actually build one for you in many cases b) if you give agents an actual validation toolkit, you'll be surprised what AI can do Of course, if you expect to prompt "give me a NURBS model of a complete, working v8 motor" and get a result, then yeah, sure, we're not there yet. I've actuall…

AI cannot physically build anything in the real world, what are you referring to? That's a huge part of mechanical engineering.

And you can give it simulation tools, but those are far far away from accounting for everything in real-world physics. You can simulate very tightly constrained problems, but you can't simulate "assemble this actuator and test it", there are so many more variables in the real world that are not easy to account for in a simulation.

If you aren't an engineer that works on physical products, it's hard to articulate just how far from reality CAD and simulations are.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#32
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3d modeling for use in software (games or similar) imo is fine, but I would love to not see this stuff in civil engineering. People without AI are unable to design buildings that don't collapse (e.g. recent NYC apartment highrise), adding AI into the mix will just make things worse.

Why do you presume it will make it worse instead of better? Humans, as you point out, could not manage to competently review buildings that don't collapse. Why would adding an additional level of checks (human or AI) do worse than not adding one?

Ai isn't being used to make competent people better but tries to give supposed expertise to people who don't have skill in that area.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#33
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CAD is a different beast than mesh modeling. For product design you need a parametric model that can have precise dimensions and is constructed mathematically step by step. Mesh modeling is just moving a pile of triangles around in a very imprecise way. Works fine for 3D printing or digital assets, but if you want something that can be manufactured that's not good enough. And there isn't a good way to go from STL ->…

> there isn't a good way to go from STL -> Parametric CAD yet. as a matter of fact, you should try what AI can do on that problem, you'd be surprised.

I have tried, I really wish it would be better because CAD is a slog and I want it to be automated. It's pretty bad at real world tasks.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#34
post #18

I've been using Astra to just create things in Blender. It's great. Kill the scroll jacking. It's a sign you're on Windows.

CAD is a different beast than mesh modeling. For product design you need a parametric model that can have precise dimensions and is constructed mathematically step by step. Mesh modeling is just moving a pile of triangles around in a very imprecise way. Works fine for 3D printing or digital assets, but if you want something that can be manufactured that's not good enough. And there isn't a good way to go from STL ->…

It's just a matter of time. Astra was trained on a new 3D modelling dataset. They will surely train it on CAD apps (if they have not already done so). I don't hold out much hope for competitors hoping to get in front of that train.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#35
post #18

I've been using Astra to just create things in Blender. It's great. Kill the scroll jacking. It's a sign you're on Windows.

CAD is a different beast than mesh modeling. For product design you need a parametric model that can have precise dimensions and is constructed mathematically step by step. Mesh modeling is just moving a pile of triangles around in a very imprecise way. Works fine for 3D printing or digital assets, but if you want something that can be manufactured that's not good enough. And there isn't a good way to go from STL ->…

Astra can use build123d, too. You'll get a STEP out of that.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#36

Looking at a bunch of these: I don't think they are even manufacturable. This is something you would use in a video game.

> This is something you would use in a video game. You say it like it's a bad thing.

It is when the tool's tagline is literally:

> an AI 3D modeling tool for architecture and product design.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#38
post #35
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CAD is a different beast than mesh modeling. For product design you need a parametric model that can have precise dimensions and is constructed mathematically step by step. Mesh modeling is just moving a pile of triangles around in a very imprecise way. Works fine for 3D printing or digital assets, but if you want something that can be manufactured that's not good enough. And there isn't a good way to go from STL ->…

Astra can use build123d, too. You'll get a STEP out of that.

I've tried Sol on build123d and it was completely unusable, I should take another stab with Astra though.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#39

I've been using Astra to just create things in Blender. It's great. Kill the scroll jacking. It's a sign you're on Windows.

I've had decent success getting Claude Opus to design models using the python cadquery library, and then I can import the step file to fusion 360 to make any changes I want afterwards.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#40
post #9

I've been using Astra to just create things in Blender. It's great. Kill the scroll jacking. It's a sign you're on Windows.

Exactly. I just give Astra an image such as furniture, and it creates an 3D reproduction in Blender. You don’t even need computer use. Codex and Blender’s scripting engine is enough.

Can you do this with the 20 dollar plan?
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