Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

formas.ai

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 87 posts

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#61

Post by fsloth »

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 ->…

" if you want something that can be manufactured that's not good enough"

People design all sort of buildable things in SketchUp and it's just about dragging polygons around.

You _may_ need accurate surface if you run your model to CAM.

But to this day lot of manufacturing is still done via drawings and there the only thing that matters is that can you draw some type of lines and attach clear dimensions to them. So the shapes don't necessarily need to be accurate for all flows since they are more like topological hints to the person reading the drawing rather than accurate replica of the thing to manufacture.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#62

Post by lastlife »

Minecraft style designs work but complexed geometry yields presentation quality in a triangular hell, which is and has been the problem with all Ai CAD since day 1. What Ai is good at in CAD is finding applicable formulas but anything functioning in a civil space is a nightmare on wax. There's not even enough correct Ai in sensory to make it reliable for self-driving cars and now they want to make the car itself with Ai? I guess in for a penny...

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#63

Post by fsloth »

virtualritz wrote: post #4

"Architecture and product design" but no STEP/IGES/BRep output, just triangles?

"no STEP/IGES/BRep output"

SketchUp does not really have that either if you are expecting something else than triangles. Since sketchup has polygons you could argue they are brep but even then only accidentally.

Architecture works with a bit different ruleset than mechanical cad.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#64

Post by YuechenLi »

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.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#65

Post by maouida »

From my experience trying to build parametric CAD modeling using FluidCAD [1] using its MCP, the biggest breakthrough is ASTRA. It seems to work well actually with any CAD if it has ways to verify its output. No otjer models was able to match its accuracy even Fable.

[1] https://fluidcad.io

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#66

Post by [deleted] »

fsloth wrote: post #61
jrflo wrote: 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 ->…

" if you want something that can be manufactured that's not good enough" People design all sort of buildable things in SketchUp and it's just about dragging polygons around. You _may_ need accurate surface if you run your model to CAM. But to this day lot of manufacturing is still done via drawings and there the only thing that matters is that can you draw some type of lines and attach clear dimensions to them. So th…

[deleted]

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#68

Post by Gravityloss »

These all seem backwards.

I like to think in shapes. I like to draw and sketch, as that has the lowest barriers between the mental concepts and physical ones.

I do not like to use cad software. It is painful to express ideas with it. Also same for all kinds of drawing software. It's just very cumbersome.

I hate explaining spatial or shape concepts to people with words. I hate having them explained to me in words.

A photographer doesn't explain his work, he shows photos he has taken.

Adrian Newey used to work with pen and paper while others had been using CAD for a long time, and won F1 championships.

Can we now make the computers less clunky and less about typing or hunting with the mouse. We want low friction to express ideas.

This seems the opposite. You're not expressing your idea, you're asking for the computer's idea.

Re: Cartesian – AI 3D Modeling for Design

#69

Post by akozak »

atonse wrote: post #10

I'm so excited about this sort of stuff. ForgeCAD [1] for me was the first mind-blowing application of this a few months ago, where I'm able to just have claude (or codex) write JS that creates 3D Models that I can then print in my 3D printer. - Built a ring for my compost bin that can properly hold down the plastic bag. This was originally a multi week project because I was also learning Fusion 360 in small 2 hour c…

[dead]
Post reply on HN