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Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

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Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#51

Post by jrflo »

altcognito wrote: post #28
jrflo wrote: 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,…

> CAD is only half of the design process I'm not a mechanical engineer but I would be surprised if it was even 30% of the process. Materials, manufacturability, durability, fitting into other requirements. Some of those things can be part of the CAD design, but there's so much more. Not to say that CAD isn't a big chunk!

Agreed, it's probably 10% of the total product development process, but approximately half if you're just considering "design" tasks.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#52

Post by dmkolobov »

The video game applications are truly pretty cool ... though I don't know who would admit to using such a tool in the current environment.

Some of the other things like the `Residential`, `Structure and Complex Shape`, and `Large Scale` seem like they'd need review by engineers to be useful in real world scenarios? Do architects just sketch whatever looks good as a first pass?

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#53

Post by Ciantic »

GPT-6 Astra with computer use has gotten some of architects and 3d modelers wondering what their future is. Astra does such a good work with SketchUp 2026 and computer use, here is video, but it is well worth it because the author actually knows his stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-ECbD14g_8

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#54

Post by prodmod »

jrflo wrote: post #18
throwitaway222 wrote: post #8

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 ->…

I was able to have Astra accurately solid model with plasticity (NOT import from Blender) and presumably it would be trivial with autocad, but I haven’t tried it yet.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#55

Post by speedgoose »

throwitaway222 wrote: post #8

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 gave some very bad sketch made in jspaint to Astra, plus some text instructions, and I got back some clean STL file and a beautiful 3D render.

It even made a second STL file with the same model rotated for 3D printing.

I remember all those hours on SolidWorks many years ago, and now you can just speak and present bad drawings to the computer, and it does it okay.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#57

Post by glaslong »

jrflo wrote: post #18
throwitaway222 wrote: post #8

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 ->…

I suppose you might be able to force a Blender agent to do parametric modeling via geometry nodes. It would be a horrible, kludgy, slow workflow for a human, but the AI won't complain.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#58

Post by YuechenLi »

jrflo wrote: post #18
throwitaway222 wrote: post #8

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 ->…

The only way to go from STL to BREP is through decompilation style recovery/reconstruction, because of the semantic information loss, so it's a task that can only be done via LLMs or human CAD users. Essentially, they pretty much have to remake the model from scratch using the STL as a reference to make the CAD. There really isn't a good way to automate this without machine learning/LLMs.
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