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Just had a fantastic experience applying agentic coding to CAD. I needed to add some threads to a few blanks in a 3d print. I used computational geometry to giv
by inciampati 11mo ago
Just had a fantastic experience applying agentic coding to CAD. I needed to add some threads to a few blanks in a 3d print. I used computational geometry to give the agent a way to "feel" around the model. I had it convolve a sphere of the radius of the connector across the entire model. It was able to use this technique to find the precise positions of the existing ports and then add threads to them. It took a few tries to get right, but if I had the technique in mind before it would be very quick. The lesson for me is that the models need to have a way to feel. In the end, the implementation of the 3d model had to be written in code, where it's auditable. Perhaps if the agent were able to see images directly and perfectly, I never would have made this discovery.
- btbuildem 11mo agoI'd love to hear more about this -- I'm messing around with a generative approach to 3D objects
- jacquesm 11mo agoOpenSCAD or something like it?
- JohnHammersley 11mo agoThanks for sharing, I'm interested to know more about how you did this if you have a longer write up somewhere? (or are considering writing one!)
- t_mann 11mo agoCadQuery? Would be appreciated if you're inclined to do writeup of your lessons learned.
- alexose 11mo agoGenerative CAD has incredible potential. I've had some decent results with OpenSCAD, but it's clear that current models don't have much "common sense" when it comes to how shapes connect. If code-based CAD tools were more common, and we had a bigger corpus to pull from, these tools would probably be pretty usable. Without this, however, it seems like we'll need to train against simulations of the physical world.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- mkoubaa 11mo agoUnlike an LLM prompt it's REALLY hard to describe the end result of a geometric object in text. "No put the thingy over there. Not that thingy!"
- nfg 11mo agoI’m not really suggesting it’s the right approach for CAD but prompting UI changes using sketches or mockup images works great.