Yeah, CAD has been my personal example of "oh the barrier to entry for this skill was high enough that I didn't do it and now I can be passably bad at it enough to get some simple things done"
replyI've had similar experiences with making simple functional parts off a 3d printer with OpenSCAD + LLMs. I'm very aware that the models are worse at it than say, generating react code, and I'm also the antithesis of a skilled pilot. It's still cool and has resulted in me starting to learn a new skill at a hobby level.
It's like this with a lot of things now. For example, Nix's learning curve used to be a huge barrier to entry. Now with LLMs, I'm using nix-darwin and home-manager for dotfiles, package management, and have individual flakes in all of my projects for cryptographically reproducible builds!
replyNit: there’s nothing “cryptographic” about reproducible builds.
reply“Reproducible build” already usually implies bit-by-bit reproducibility.
I meant with Nix you're comparing hashes. With Docker, you're using pinned versions
replyi thought it mainly implied architectural/hardware compatibility and deterministic output
replyNix is also great at work. You keep the server nix code in the same repo and OpenCode can just change and test server config.
replyLearning to make simple parts in onshape is pretty darn easy (and fun).
replyYeah. I teach this after school to 7th grade kids. Anyone can pick this up in a few hours.
replyThey taught us to make Legobricks with CAD when I was in 6th. Wish I retained more of that and that it would be more widely taught.
replyI am reasonably confident that access to solid modeling and additive fabrication is now more widespread than ever.
replyClaude does well if you can provide all dimensions. It fails at guessing though. The real magic is when you can provide one dimension or photograph with a ruler in it and the AI will figure the rest out. Right now, Claude anyways, is pretty bad at guessing.
replythese small functional prints are exactly where OpenSCAD and LLM generation shines
replyI was recently trying to get models to generate a 3D fortune cookie. Claude in three.js and Gemini in openSCAD. Neither really got the concept or could get very close at all. It's a surprisingly complex shape I guess.
replywith the shape you probably want something thats good at bends/fabric
replycause youd start with the flat shape, the set some contraints that certain edges are colinear
Does it optimize for no support?
replyYou optimize for no support when selecting print orientation (but for anything semi-cylindrical like described that would be the only sane orientation and the one slicer would choose when you smash the 'Auto Orientation' button).
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