Show HN: Open-sourcing our text-to-CAD app

48 zachdive 7 9/5/2025, 5:09:35 PM github.com ↗
Hey HN! I'm Zach from Adam (https://adam.new/). We’re building an AI co-pilot for mechanical CAD software.

As part of our broader research, we built a browser-based Text-to-CAD app (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44182206) and are now open sourcing it. This is a React SPA with a Supabase backend.

What it does:

* Generates parametric 3D models from natural language descriptions, with support for both text prompts and image references

* Outputs OpenSCAD code with automatically extracted parameters that surface as interactive sliders for instant dimension tweaking

* Exports as .STL or .SCAD

Under the hood:

* Separate agents for conversation and code generation; simple parameter tweaks bypass AI entirely using deterministic regex-based updates

* Runs fully in-browser by compiling OpenSCAD to WebAssembly and integrating Three.js with React Three Fiber for 3D rendering

* Supports BOSL, BOSL2, MCAD libraries and custom font support (Geist) for text in models

We’ve seen many developers trying to replicate this kind of functionality, so we’re releasing this to give the community a solid foundation to build on.

Future improvements:

* Expand geometry support - Move beyond CSG primitives to support curved surfaces, fillets, lofts, and constraint-driven modeling through CadQuery/Build123D

* Better spatial context - UI for face/edge selection and viewport image integration to give LLMs spatial understanding

* Enhanced capabilities - RAG on documentation and integration with more OpenSCAD libraries for features like proper threading

You can clone the repo and run it locally! Contributions are welcome, and we’ll keep merging PRs as they come in.

Comments (7)

bilsbie · 24m ago
Cool project. AI is surprisingly good with openscad. I wonder what a custom trained model could do?
jstanley · 1h ago
> CADAM uses ngrok to send image URLs to Anthropic

FYI you can send base64 encoded PNGs, no need to mess about with ngrok.

adenta · 1h ago
Yeah, the idea sounds magic, but there’s a lot of weird things going on in this application

I feel like a standalone script would be much more helpful

zachdive · 18m ago
i agree
mclau157 · 1h ago
Readme could really use some pictures
zachdive · 22m ago
will add some!
acct-detrius-10 · 1h ago
The original CADAM was better, IMO, operated by a human neural-net evolved through millions of years of evolution, with an amazing visual cortex connected to a symbolic logic system. Of course the tragedy of the commons will remove this comment too. We designed planes on it that, you know, actually flew.

Go Home AI overlords and crowd.