This reminds me of using llms for LaTex.
They will get you to 80% fast, The last 20% to match what is in your head are hard.
If you never walked the long path you you probably won’t manage to go the last few steps.
Teaching LLMs how to solid model
71–80 of 115 posts
Re: Teaching LLMs how to solid model
#72I wanted to use this process (LLM -> OpenSCAD) a few months ago to create custom server rack brackets (ears) for externally mounting water-cooling radiator of the server I am building. I ended up learning about 3D printing, using SolidWorks (it has great built-in tutorials) and did this the old fashioned way. This process may work for refining parts against very well known objects, i.e. iPhone, but the amount of refinement, back and forth and verbosity needed, the low acceptance rate - I do not believe we're close to using these tools for CAD.
Re: Teaching LLMs how to solid model
#73The future: "and I want a 3mm hole in one side of the plate. No the other side. No, not like that, at the bottom. Now make it 10mm from the other hole. No the other hole. No, up not sideways. Wait, which way is up? Never mind, I'll do it myself." I'm having trouble understanding why you would want to do this. A good interface between what I want and the model I will make is to draw a picture, not write an essay. This…
[flagged]
Re: Teaching LLMs how to solid model
#74Wow, this entire thing reads like a huge "stay away" sign to me.
The call to action at the end is: "Try out Text-to-CAD in our Modeling App" But that's like the last thing I want to do. Even when I'm working with very experienced professionals, it's really hard to tell them what exactly I want to see changed in their 3D CAD design. That's why they usually export lots of 2D drawings and then I will use a pencil to draw on top of it and then they will manually update the 3D shape to match my drawn request. The improvement that I would like to see in affordable CAD software is that they make it easier to generate section views and ideally the software would be able to back-propagate changes from 2D into the 3D shape. Maybe one day that will be possible with multimodal AI models, but even then the true improvement is going to be in the methods that the AI model uses internally to update the data. But trying to use text? That's like bringing a knife to a gunfight. It's obviously the wrong modality for humans to reason about shapes.
Also, as a more general comment, I am not sure that it is possible to introduce a new CAD tool with only subscription pricing. Typically, an enclosure design will go through multiple variations over multiple production runs in multiple years. That means it's obvious to everyone that you need your CAD software to continue working for years into the future. For a behemoth like Autodesk, that is believable. For a startup with a six month burn rate, it's not. That's why people treat startups with subscription pricing like vaporware.
Re: Teaching LLMs how to solid model
#75The future: "and I want a 3mm hole in one side of the plate. No the other side. No, not like that, at the bottom. Now make it 10mm from the other hole. No the other hole. No, up not sideways. Wait, which way is up? Never mind, I'll do it myself." I'm having trouble understanding why you would want to do this. A good interface between what I want and the model I will make is to draw a picture, not write an essay. This…
I think this is along the lines of the AI horseless carriage[1] topic that is also on the front page right now. You seem to be describing the current method as operated through an AI intermediary. I think the power in AI for CAD will be at a higher level than lines, faces and holes. It will be more along the lines of "make a bracket between these two parts". "Make this part bolt to that other part". "Attach this pump…
It's also going to be about diagnosing issues. "This part broke right here, explain why and come up with a solution", "Evaluate the robustness of this solution", "Can I save some material and reduce the weight", etc.
Those are the kind of high level questions that an LLM with a decent understanding of CAD and design might be able to deal with soon and it will help speed up expensive design iterations.
A neat trick with current LLMs is to give them screenshots of web pages and ask some open questions about the design, information flow, etc. It will spot things that expert designers would comment on as well. It will point out things that are unclear, etc. You can go far beyond just micro managing incremental edits to some thing.
Mostly the main limitation with LLMs is the imagination of the person using it. Ask the right questions and they get a lot more useful. Even some of the older models that maybe weren't that smart were actually quite useful.
For giggles, I asked chatgpt to critique the design of HN. Not bad. https://chatgpt.com/share/6809df2b-fc00-800e-bb33-fe7d8c3611...
Re: Teaching LLMs how to solid model
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that this isn't very useful except for the very earliest ideation stages of industrial design, which hardly need CAD anyway. Most parts need to fit with something else, usually some set of components. Then there are considerations around draft, moldability, size of core pins, sliders, direction of ejection, wall thickness, coring out, radii, ribs for stiffness, tolerances... LLMs seem far off from bein…
You may or may not be right, but your arguments sound like echos of what software developers were saying four or five years ago. And four or five years ago, they were right. Don't dismiss an AI tool just because the first iterations aren't useful, it'll be iterated on faster than you can believe possible.
While LLMs are a useful tool for software development, if you try asking them the software equivalent of “Create a plastic enclosure sized to go under a desk, ok add a usb receptacle opening, ok add flanges with standard screw holes” you'll end up with the equivalent of “No the other side. No, not like that, at the bottom. Now make it 10mm from the other hole. No the other hole. No, up not sideways. Wait, which way is up? Never mind, I'll do it myself” a lot.
What works is asking them to implement micro feature that you will specify well enough at first try, not to ask them writing the entire piece of software from top to bottom. The tech is clearly not there yet for the latter.
The main difference between Code and CAD is that code is language you're writing to the machine to execute already, so it's pretty natural to just use a more abstract/natural language to ask it instead of the formal one of code, whereas CAD is a visual, almost physical task, and it's more pleasant to do a task than describe it in depth with words.
Re: Teaching LLMs how to solid model
#77As someone who enjoys doing CAD and spends a fair amount of time doing contortions to get OpenSCAD to do relatively simple things like bevels and chamfers, I’d say this is interesting because of the model ranking, but ultimately pointless because LLMs do not really have a mental model of things like CSG and actual relative positioning - they can do simple boxes and cylinders with mounting holes, but that’s about it.
Re: Teaching LLMs how to solid model
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is along the lines of the AI horseless carriage[1] topic that is also on the front page right now. You seem to be describing the current method as operated through an AI intermediary. I think the power in AI for CAD will be at a higher level than lines, faces and holes. It will be more along the lines of "make a bracket between these two parts". "Make this part bolt to that other part". "Attach this pump…
It's also going to be about diagnosing issues. "This part broke right here, explain why and come up with a solution", "Evaluate the robustness of this solution", "Can I save some material and reduce the weight", etc. Those are the kind of high level questions that an LLM with a decent understanding of CAD and design might be able to deal with soon and it will help speed up expensive design iterations. A neat trick wi…
> Not bad
It reads like a horoscope to me.
Re: Teaching LLMs how to solid model
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is along the lines of the AI horseless carriage[1] topic that is also on the front page right now. You seem to be describing the current method as operated through an AI intermediary. I think the power in AI for CAD will be at a higher level than lines, faces and holes. It will be more along the lines of "make a bracket between these two parts". "Make this part bolt to that other part". "Attach this pump…
It's also going to be about diagnosing issues. "This part broke right here, explain why and come up with a solution", "Evaluate the robustness of this solution", "Can I save some material and reduce the weight", etc. Those are the kind of high level questions that an LLM with a decent understanding of CAD and design might be able to deal with soon and it will help speed up expensive design iterations. A neat trick wi…
> Mostly the main limitation with LLMs is the imagination of the person using it. Ask the right questions and they get a lot more useful.
Completely agree.
We get waves of comments on HN downplaying model abilities or their value.
Many people don’t seem to explore and experiment with them enough. I have 3 screens. The left one has two models on it. The right one has a model & a web browser for quick searches. I work on the largest middle screen.
Extreme maybe, but I use them constantly resulting in constant discovery of helpful new uses.
I web search maybe 10% of what I did six months ago.
The quirks are real, but the endless upsides models deliver when you try things were unobtainium, from humans or machines, until LLMs.
Re: Teaching LLMs how to solid model
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may or may not be right, but your arguments sound like echos of what software developers were saying four or five years ago. And four or five years ago, they were right. Don't dismiss an AI tool just because the first iterations aren't useful, it'll be iterated on faster than you can believe possible.
While LLMs are a useful tool for software development, if you try asking them the software equivalent of “Create a plastic enclosure sized to go under a desk, ok add a usb receptacle opening, ok add flanges with standard screw holes” you'll end up with the equivalent of “No the other side. No, not like that, at the bottom. Now make it 10mm from the other hole. No the other hole. No, up not sideways. Wait, which way i…
> Create a plastic enclosure sized to go under a desk, ok add a usb receptacle opening, ok add flanges with standard screw holes
With vague specifications like these, you'd get garbage from a human too.
What works for software, and I suspect for other technical fields like CAD too, is to treat it like a junior developer who has an extreme breadth of knowledge but not much depth. You will need to take care to clearly specify your requirements.