I love to see more of these tools build on rhino's kernel. Arguably the best modelling (parametric, manual, or SDK) ergonomics when it comes to, from my experience, early stage aec workflows. A similar tool launched recently [0] that i found interesting. I'm also biased as it's my first and only true love when it comes to "coding things" for the built environment.
My take was that designing buildings was always the cheap part, and not core to what moves the needle in AEC (architecture, engineering, construction)
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 -> Parametric CAD so there's still room for a product here.
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.
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 chunks over many weekends, then with ForgeCAD I had a good prototype in 60 mins with multiple iterations.
- I also built a cover for my overheating Logitech Circle doorbell, snapped a photo, gave it to claude, and claude found all the dimensions on Logitech's website, and then we iterated with 3-4 prints until we had it just right.
This is a whole new set of workflows that are unleashed with agents, even for hobbyists.
They're saying it as if it were contrary to what's being claimed. The tagline says "for architecture and product design." The supported file formats are not video game formats.
These products are still in their early stages, but it is clear that the AI wave is reaching 3D modeling as well.
It will impact mechanical and civil engineering just as it has impacted software development.
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?
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, but there's no validation loop like there is with software, so you can't have an agent run wild and endlessly iterate.
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.
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 actually built a bunch of stuff with a combo of astra, blender, openscad and tiny bits of AI written helpers ... giving the AI the proper "hands" to work with the models is key.
One particularly useful tool to provide the AI with is to be able to "look" at the model as it iterates on it (measure dimensions, shoot arbitrary rays at it that return exact intersections and normals, see if the object obeys engineering constraints, etc ...).
Works pretty well for many, many things and saves a TON of time.
I love the web design though! Formas.ai has been doing great work in the visualization space, and it’s great watching them tackle 3D via the very apt name Cartesian. Defo support what they are doing. Maybe I can finally sleep better too!
Actually this appears to output 3DM, which is the CAD format Rhinoceros 3D uses, and is based on openNURBs. The typically tiny Claude (?) text (such as I can read it) makes it clear it's not just a mesh format, mentions faces and edges.
On that basis it is a step up from the usual AI CAD silliness.
I've just started working on 3D modeling software of my own, though this looks to be far ahead. Mostly focused on 3D printing - creating printable models is pretty expensive and tedious at the moment, and fully native.
Indeed — I try to stay away from website design critique here and it's against a rule, but that dot field makes it actually impossible for me to read, especially given the low text contrast and small fonts on the body text.
My take was that designing buildings was always the cheap part, and not core to what moves the needle in AEC (architecture, engineering, construction)
[0] https://illoca.com/ , not affiliated
Kill the scroll jacking. It's a sign you're on Windows.
yet.
as a matter of fact, you should try what AI can do on that problem, you'd be surprised.
- 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 chunks over many weekends, then with ForgeCAD I had a good prototype in 60 mins with multiple iterations.
- I also built a cover for my overheating Logitech Circle doorbell, snapped a photo, gave it to claude, and claude found all the dimensions on Logitech's website, and then we iterated with 3-4 prints until we had it just right.
This is a whole new set of workflows that are unleashed with agents, even for hobbyists.
1: https://forgecad.io
You say it like it's a bad thing.
its good to be skeptical, better to spur competition and address any limitations to competition functioning quickly
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!
Also: disagree about the lack of validation loop:
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 actually built a bunch of stuff with a combo of astra, blender, openscad and tiny bits of AI written helpers ... giving the AI the proper "hands" to work with the models is key.
One particularly useful tool to provide the AI with is to be able to "look" at the model as it iterates on it (measure dimensions, shoot arbitrary rays at it that return exact intersections and normals, see if the object obeys engineering constraints, etc ...).
Works pretty well for many, many things and saves a TON of time.
On that basis it is a step up from the usual AI CAD silliness.
[1] https://tomasimodeler.com (pardon the AI-slop, it's just a placeholder)