Show HN: AI in SolidWorks

Re:Show HN: AI in SolidWorks by nancyminusone on Monday January 12, 2026 @01:26PM (#46592246)

Solidworks's current controls are the best interface for it. "Draw a picture" is something you're going to find really difficult to beat. Most of the other parametric CADs work the same way, and Solidworks is widely known as one of the best interfaces on top of that. They've spent decades building one that is both unambiguous and fast.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: AI in SolidWorks by thesuitonym on Monday January 12, 2026 @02:06PM (#46592768)

Maybe it's just the engineers I've worked with, but I've never heard anyone describe Solidworks as "fast."

(Of course, you and I know it is, it's just that you're asking it to do a lot)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: AI in SolidWorks by nancyminusone on Monday January 12, 2026 @02:14PM (#46592859)

Haha yes, I've never heard any engineer discribe any CAD package as anything other than slow and full of bugs. But of the alternatives, I think most would still pick Solidworks.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: AI in SolidWorks by FuriouslyAdrift on Monday January 12, 2026 @04:09PM (#46594336)

All of our production engineers that use CATIA think SolidWorks is fast...

I guess it's all in the perspective

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: AI in SolidWorks by gmueckl on Monday January 12, 2026 @07:45PM (#46596050)

I wonder how many of these bugs are actually situations where the underlying algorithms are simply confronted with situations outside their valid input domains. This can happen easily with 3d surface representations of geometries.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: AI in SolidWorks by jwagenet on Monday January 12, 2026 @10:49PM (#46597149)

Modelling isn't the slow part. If one is copying a drawing and have exact dimensions its pretty straightforward in most software even if the software is bloated.

[ Parent | on HN ]