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variodot 2 days ago [-]
I'm building ShopSpec (https://shopspec.io/) for this kind of workflow. I'm a woodworker and use it for my own home and shop builds.
It's a woodworking domain engine and parametric furniture builder focused on projects like bookshelves, cabinetry, and shop furniture. It works out the parts, joints, cut list, etc.
There is an MCP component in beta (https://shopspec.io/agents) that allows an agent to explore designs while the engine still does the math. To take a design to CAD, a project can be exported as DXF or as a Ruby script that rebuilds it in SketchUp Pro.
It's narrower than Shapr3D, but it might fit the projects you describe.
harmoni-pet 5 hours ago [-]
Cool idea. You might want to tell your LLM to chill on the all caps small text. It's adding eyebrow text to basically every section. Just say 'no eyebrow text. only use caps lock on small text if you absolutely have a good reason to'.
ramblerman 3 hours ago [-]
lol - something so passive aggressive about this comment.
You could just say you don't like the excessive use of caps.
ed312 6 hours ago [-]
This is amazing -- I was looking for a tool exactly like this to DIY a bookshelf. That said - I noticed none of the patterns had curved edges (or curved sides e.g. for a corner bookshelf. Is that technically possible or out of scope for now?
NamlchakKhandro 36 minutes ago [-]
why does this need to be a website?
contingencies 8 hours ago [-]
This is cool. I have a friend getting in to furniture making and forwarded this, however: (1) You need a metric default outside of the US. (2) >4 shelves does not work. (3) 'Other' hardwood type not possible. (4) Could not find a way to get chamfer to render on slab top.
voxelghost 5 hours ago [-]
can not answer to the other points. But under 'set up shop' there is a selection of metric vs imperial units. (among many other things)
contingencies 5 hours ago [-]
I get it, but most of the world will find that annoying. Hence, intelligent default.
bickfordb 5 hours ago [-]
I use metric as a default in the US =)
contingencies 5 hours ago [-]
FUTURIST! Love your style. I hope you also adopt YYYY-MM-DD ISO dating.
jdenning 21 hours ago [-]
This looks really nice, I'll give it a shot with my next project!
dingaling911 8 hours ago [-]
This is so clever.
xyst 6 hours ago [-]
I want to self host this. Where’s the code?
jen20 8 hours ago [-]
This looks fantastic - great job!
seemaze 6 hours ago [-]
A friend of mine was borrowing the shop of a very well known luthier to build some furniture. I stopped by to check the whole situation out and I found them both with their brows furrowed trying to work out some tolerances for a joint on a scrap piece of paper. As an architect by training, I quipped "at some point you'll have to start making proper drawings of you projects ahead of time", to which the luthier replied "the plans are always the problem, you're better off letting the wood tell you how it should be put it together." to which I had no reply..
WillAdams 6 hours ago [-]
The grandfather of one of my son's friends was a locally-noted woodcarver --- when his daughter first brought home her future husband, he handed the prospective son-in-law a piece of wood and a knife and asked, "What do you see in the wood?" When the reply was, "A piece of wood.", he took both back rather disgustedly.
His woodcarvings were _amazing_, in particular for his ability to work with the grain and even to chase a single ring so as to make a perfectly shaped, but seemingly impossibly thin and light wing of a bird.
bob1029 29 minutes ago [-]
Be aware that AI is really bad at certain kinds of geometry. This can either go very well or very poorly. I'm not aware of many happy cases in the middle.
A simple test is that if the object you are modeling could be described by a brief python program (automating blender/CAD APIs), then the LLM will probably one shot it perfectly. If what you are modeling is a human face or bird, then the LLM is at best a clumsy apprentice. High Kolmogorov complexity is the common thread behind all things that LLMs will struggle with.
It can sometimes be easier to lean on a diffusion model and then trace over the results the old fashioned way. Diffusion completely sidesteps the geometry which helps with design speed.
Might be worth a look at https://openscad.org/ which is a free tool which designs in 3d based on a programming language that LLMs find easy to use. Then https://cutlistevo.com/ for optimization and nesting of your cut list.
Mazer23 2 hours ago [-]
Shameless plug: I’m workin on http://partforge.ai right now it’s mostly aimed at 3d printing but it can create laser cut sheet parts with dxf file exports and will support cnc routed parts with drill holes and socket diagrams built in in the near future. Board cut lists as a export is a little further out, but you can ask it for measurements of anything you build and it would probably be a pretty useful tool.
maouida 2 days ago [-]
I'm a developer and hobbyist woodworker too :)
I'm also the developer of FluidCAD.
It has an MCP you can wire to any LLM.
It runs locally on your machine.
It is still missing features for splitting the model into parts, but that is coming in a future release.
FluidCad looks smooth. How much AI generated code (%) is used in FluidCad? And how long did it take to make?
maouida 2 hours ago [-]
I have started tje POC 2 years ago without AI. When it reached a shape I like I started using AI. Now all code is AI written but I'm still controlling the overall architecture.
If you have some physical reference, for example a coffee table, you can create an accurate 3D model of that quickly. The agent creates model that can be converted to STEP format and opened with any CAD software.
This might help you? You get a good model that you can start editing towards your own design.
Basically you take few pictures. Three is usually enough of furnitures. The agent uses the pictures to find the exact camera poses and creates a 3D model that minimizes the difference between the object's silhouette in images and in the 3D-model when projected with the virtual cameras to the 2D planes. The agents create the model with python scripts. First using numpy for faster optimization and finally CadQuery for easy exports to CAD formats.
uxamanda 44 minutes ago [-]
I am not a woodworker but wanted to make a simple dehydrator and had good results getting a cut list and build steps with pictures from Claude and the Sketchup integration.
wg0 47 minutes ago [-]
Since relevant community is here - what are some of the good online resources to learn woodwork? What tools/power tools one needs to know specifically?
NamlchakKhandro 41 minutes ago [-]
90 deg corners... Get a square that you trust. Learn the 3-4-5 method.
patience.
Wear hearing protection.
You more than likely will probably never need a table saw, jointer or a festool domino tool.
Tools I'd get first:
- japanese pull saws
- good chisel set
- a track saw... and a 2.4x1m.2m sheet of foam to cut on
- a palm router, learn how to make all your own jigs
- 12 irwin quick clamps. if you also prefer and can afford, 12 t-track f clamps.
- an impact dril, and a normal drill
- a decking drillbit
- a marking guage
- pencils
- a speed square
then
- make or get saw horses. and 2.4mx1.2m sheet of formply
100% avoid:
- 90 corner clamps.
instead get larger 1.2m irwin quick clamps or 3d print some corner protectors for a strap (assuming you're doing boxes)
kentlyons 8 hours ago [-]
Claude Code is now WAY better at the freecad python api. My product (related to ceramics) does a whole bunch of custom 3d modeling and the new generation of LLMs can go in and make significant changes and basically get it right. They can also deal with a lot of annoying corner cases when you run into them.
asteroidburger 2 hours ago [-]
I'm now printing my 3rd or 4th totally Claude-generated 3d printed custom project enclosure. Opus 5.5 is quite good - it's been generating CadQuery scripts and exporting them as STL for me, along with image previews and so on.
TrueDuality 7 hours ago [-]
I've also had really good success with FreeCAD, and the FreeCAD MCP server. So far I've had it design and build a custom workbench (woodworking project w/ cut list, assembly and hardware instructions, tool and part check lists) as well as a omni-directional differential style robot wheel module for a 3D printing.
I will say the differential wheel module was on the edge of what it was able to do. I had to bump it up to Fable and if I didn't already have a clear model in my head of what I wanted I don't think it could have pulled it off.
OpenSCAD as well. I bounce back and forth between the two of them a fair bit depending on what I'm doing and which one's going to be more ergonomic for the problem at hand. The Fusion 360 built-in chat thing... not so good in my very limited experience.
artyom 6 hours ago [-]
Second this. Since Opus 4.6 there's been a very noticeable bump in accuracy at just doing FreeCAD+Python or OpenSCAD code, usually one-shots things with basically described geometry.
Recently, Sonnet 5.5 got quite good, too, but not at the level of Opus/Fable for complex geometry
Disclaimer: I use it for very precise 3D printing, not woodwork.
kentlyons 7 hours ago [-]
I can imagine. I did a bit of poking with blender and the api use got better there as well. For my use case I needed BREPs so stuck with freecad. I'm tempted one of these days where I have a pile of extra tokens to see about converting it to directly use the Open Cascade library since I just need to model and not the UI.
dghlsakjg 7 hours ago [-]
Seconding openscad (havent tried freecad to be fair) with opus 5.5
I had it design a model sailboat hull, and it fucking nailed it. It even designed it for printability. I’m genuinely really impressed.
evek 2 hours ago [-]
I’m using Plasticity with an MCP and Astra for 3D printing work, haven’t tried it for woodworking projects yet. It’s decent at modeling medium complexity enclosures and structural supports, so might be worth giving it a try.
diogopmonteiro 1 hours ago [-]
I use a combination of openscad, blender to render previews of the full thing, and opcut to generate cutlists. I usually ask the models to generate a workshop pdf with the cutlist and the exploded view of the assembly.
I'm doing mainly simple furniture and cabinets.
m4rkuskk 7 hours ago [-]
I'm a developer and a previous commercial concrete superintendent. I built a 3d model designer similar to Autodesk Revit as well as a pdf editor similar to Bluebeam. You can connect MCP to it to build full buildings based of drawings.
Everything is stored locally (with cloud feature coming soon as well as desktop versions.)
tcdent 7 hours ago [-]
For realizing designs in physical space, I create a Python library with a DSL that allows us to express all of the components and how they relate with each other. The most important thing this provides is a deterministic way to test the assembly. Then, you take the parameterized relationships between the components and export them into things like three-dimensional views or cut lists, rather than trying to manipulate three-dimensional software as your source of truth. (Although Claude is pretty effective at driving Blender via Python, too.)
WillAdams 5 hours ago [-]
Sounds interesting!
I've been working on this sort of thing at a far lower-level (directly modeling toolpaths and tool shapes so as to get 3D models of parts).
PythonSCAD has an Align command which I need to wrap my mind around to see if it would be workable for positioning parts.
jmtulloss 5 hours ago [-]
I’m doing exactly this (in TypeScript) for buildings / construction. It can’t really do woodworking (not designed for that) but I can confirm that it’s an effective strategy for spatial assemblies.
_annum 2 hours ago [-]
Out of curiosity, is this a self-directed (business) project or are you employed somewhere? What types of buildings and assemblies?
7 hours ago [-]
vanrysss 5 hours ago [-]
Shameless plug since I work for them, but have your tried Vizcom? We're in the ai-assisted prototyping and design space. Our focus is industrial design but I don't see why you couldn't get assistance with woodworking projects. :)
meetingthrower 7 hours ago [-]
I am a woodworker mostly but do it all on pencil and paper. That said I have a 3d printer and cnc and fusion360 with the Claude mcp connector has been pretty amazing in my tests. One more year and it will be a new world.
I have gotten just "ok" at CAD. I'm not as productive as I should be because I avoid it. Really looking forward to this.
antoineMoPa 2 days ago [-]
Not yet fully baked, but I am planning to add a woodworking mode to claydash with natural cutting UI - For now I have a couple of wood materials and there is the ability to extrude + cut faces à la sketch up, which should work for simple projects.
At what point is it no longer being a woodworker? Ai does the design and the modeling work. A robot actually does the cutting.
Isn’t this closer to being an architect or a designer now?
greenpizza13 5 hours ago [-]
I used blender mcp and Astra to do a woodworking design a few days ago, plans came out great.
Sevii 8 hours ago [-]
I've had good results with Claude Code + OpenSCAD.
itissid 7 hours ago [-]
I do home improvement projects (I've in wall built-in storage, benches and nooks) I am on a clock and i have very little room in which to work. The only tool I have relied on https://www.cutlistoptimizer.com/ I have found that the CAD based tools to be pretty much beside the point for _most_ wood working projects for hobbyists, for a few reasons:
1. First several 3-d design iterations are throwaway reworked because I am constantly measuring the design, clearances and studs. And paper works best here instead of working with clankers which takes way longer.
2. Choosing the right kind of materials: thickness and type of plywood, type of hinges, panels, finished or unfinished. Optimize for simplicity of putting components together is most important.
3. Once the design settles the actual joinery needs to be as simple and efficient e.g. butt joints work well most of the time. A good jig for pocket holes is generally the most needed. You will be surprised how well a staple gun works for creating back panels of cupboards.
Its not that they are not useful, shopspec looks great(good job variodot), its just that I can get further and faster without them for most hobbyist pursuits. I invoke YAGNI most of the time because I constantly ask myself one question: "How can I make this be less time consuming?".
Jemm 2 hours ago [-]
RapidCAM.app (https://rapidcam.app) has excellent support for AI. The file format specs are published and open source so AI can easily write an ".rcam" file.
RapidCAM.app is a parametric 2.5D CAD/CAM for CNC and laser with support for rotary axis. RapidCAM.app runs in the browser or as desktop apps. There is no login required. The app is free to use. Privacy is respected. rcamhub.com is the sharing site for .rcam files.
Within the App, you can define your project and then use the built in prompt generator. This creates a prompt with all the details AI could need. Once the AI replies with the file, you can paste it back into the app which will then verify the file for you.
Desktop versions of the app have MCP server built in so AI can control the app directly if that is a route you prefer.
I started RapidCAM for my own use as I found that the CNC was sitting idle simply because firing up a full CAD/CAM package took too long. The idea with RapidCAM is that you can quickly sketch out your job from as simple as you need to as advanced as you want going from unconstrained to full parametric/constrained as required.
pseudorandomnum 5 hours ago [-]
Model wood with AI?
How are you going to carve it? Which machine?
dackdel 3 hours ago [-]
zoodev?
dboreham 6 hours ago [-]
Ask Claude to generate OpenSCAD files.
xyst 6 hours ago [-]
I use blender
pseudorandomnum 5 hours ago [-]
Model wood? How are you going to carve it? Which machine?
It's a woodworking domain engine and parametric furniture builder focused on projects like bookshelves, cabinetry, and shop furniture. It works out the parts, joints, cut list, etc.
There is an MCP component in beta (https://shopspec.io/agents) that allows an agent to explore designs while the engine still does the math. To take a design to CAD, a project can be exported as DXF or as a Ruby script that rebuilds it in SketchUp Pro.
It's narrower than Shapr3D, but it might fit the projects you describe.
You could just say you don't like the excessive use of caps.
His woodcarvings were _amazing_, in particular for his ability to work with the grain and even to chase a single ring so as to make a perfectly shaped, but seemingly impossibly thin and light wing of a bird.
A simple test is that if the object you are modeling could be described by a brief python program (automating blender/CAD APIs), then the LLM will probably one shot it perfectly. If what you are modeling is a human face or bird, then the LLM is at best a clumsy apprentice. High Kolmogorov complexity is the common thread behind all things that LLMs will struggle with.
It can sometimes be easier to lean on a diffusion model and then trace over the results the old fashioned way. Diffusion completely sidesteps the geometry which helps with design speed.
I'm also the developer of FluidCAD. It has an MCP you can wire to any LLM. It runs locally on your machine.
It is still missing features for splitting the model into parts, but that is coming in a future release.
https://fluidcad.io/
MCP config (node.js required): https://fluidcad.io/docs/cli/#fluidcad-mcp
If you have some physical reference, for example a coffee table, you can create an accurate 3D model of that quickly. The agent creates model that can be converted to STEP format and opened with any CAD software.
This might help you? You get a good model that you can start editing towards your own design.
Here is agent skill that works with OpenAI models and Codex https://github.com/janne-alatalo/image-to-cad-skill
Basically you take few pictures. Three is usually enough of furnitures. The agent uses the pictures to find the exact camera poses and creates a 3D model that minimizes the difference between the object's silhouette in images and in the 3D-model when projected with the virtual cameras to the 2D planes. The agents create the model with python scripts. First using numpy for faster optimization and finally CadQuery for easy exports to CAD formats.
patience.
Wear hearing protection.
You more than likely will probably never need a table saw, jointer or a festool domino tool.
Tools I'd get first:
- japanese pull saws
- good chisel set
- a track saw... and a 2.4x1m.2m sheet of foam to cut on
- a palm router, learn how to make all your own jigs
- 12 irwin quick clamps. if you also prefer and can afford, 12 t-track f clamps.
- an impact dril, and a normal drill
- a decking drillbit
- a marking guage
- pencils
- a speed square
then
- make or get saw horses. and 2.4mx1.2m sheet of formply
100% avoid:
- 90 corner clamps.
I will say the differential wheel module was on the edge of what it was able to do. I had to bump it up to Fable and if I didn't already have a clear model in my head of what I wanted I don't think it could have pulled it off.
Recently, Sonnet 5.5 got quite good, too, but not at the level of Opus/Fable for complex geometry
Disclaimer: I use it for very precise 3D printing, not woodwork.
I had it design a model sailboat hull, and it fucking nailed it. It even designed it for printability. I’m genuinely really impressed.
I'm doing mainly simple furniture and cabinets.
https://builder.auxx.ai/
Everything is stored locally (with cloud feature coming soon as well as desktop versions.)
I've been working on this sort of thing at a far lower-level (directly modeling toolpaths and tool shapes so as to get 3D models of parts).
PythonSCAD has an Align command which I need to wrap my mind around to see if it would be workable for positioning parts.
I have gotten just "ok" at CAD. I'm not as productive as I should be because I avoid it. Really looking forward to this.
The local version has a MCP server.
see https://claydash.com/
Isn’t this closer to being an architect or a designer now?
1. First several 3-d design iterations are throwaway reworked because I am constantly measuring the design, clearances and studs. And paper works best here instead of working with clankers which takes way longer.
2. Choosing the right kind of materials: thickness and type of plywood, type of hinges, panels, finished or unfinished. Optimize for simplicity of putting components together is most important.
3. Once the design settles the actual joinery needs to be as simple and efficient e.g. butt joints work well most of the time. A good jig for pocket holes is generally the most needed. You will be surprised how well a staple gun works for creating back panels of cupboards.
Its not that they are not useful, shopspec looks great(good job variodot), its just that I can get further and faster without them for most hobbyist pursuits. I invoke YAGNI most of the time because I constantly ask myself one question: "How can I make this be less time consuming?".
RapidCAM.app is a parametric 2.5D CAD/CAM for CNC and laser with support for rotary axis. RapidCAM.app runs in the browser or as desktop apps. There is no login required. The app is free to use. Privacy is respected. rcamhub.com is the sharing site for .rcam files.
Within the App, you can define your project and then use the built in prompt generator. This creates a prompt with all the details AI could need. Once the AI replies with the file, you can paste it back into the app which will then verify the file for you.
Desktop versions of the app have MCP server built in so AI can control the app directly if that is a route you prefer.
I started RapidCAM for my own use as I found that the CNC was sitting idle simply because firing up a full CAD/CAM package took too long. The idea with RapidCAM is that you can quickly sketch out your job from as simple as you need to as advanced as you want going from unconstrained to full parametric/constrained as required.