On that basis it is a step up from the usual AI CAD silliness.
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.
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
[1] https://tomasimodeler.com (pardon the AI-slop, it's just a placeholder)
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
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
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'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!
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