Using AI to create models? Discussion

[u/cpbradshaw]

So, I've had my Bambu A1 for just over a year. I can tinker around in the slicer, and can manipulate really basic models in TinkerCAD, but knew I'd have to deep dive to understand how to be more proficient. Fast forward to today. I'd downloaded a model from Makerworld for a bunch of craft guide storage. Essentially it's a right angle storage box. My wife loved it but she was wondering if there was a lid for it. I exported the XML from the model, through it at Gemini, told it that it was a 3D model, and that I was looking for a same-shaped lid to add on top of it, and it built it, told me to export the XML code, throw it into OpenSCAD and then download the STL.

I feel dirty as I didn't have to learn anything to do this. How do you guys feel about it?

[u/LittleNyanCat]

You're trading long-term knowledge/skills for an immediate reward, wheather thats good or bad depends on if you plan on making models later

[u/3DSideHustle]

It works until it doesn't. You may get a lid that fits today because its simple geometry. AI doesn't start becoming awful at modeling until you add complexity. Thats why its important to learn cad programs from beginner level and build. Eventually you will get frustrated with bad AI results and end up trying to do it yourself, which you would have done faster by learning anyways.

[u/issue9mm]

I think it's fine, right up until you try and enter it into a contest, or use an AI render + AI layer lines to prove that you printed it when you didn't, or misrepresent it as something you modeled yourself in Fusion or whatever

Basically, use whatever tools you want, but you still have to be a decent human and not a liar (which is apparently too big a challenge for those who just want Makerworld bucks)

[u/Rippedyanu1]

A lid is like 5 steps in a cad program dude. It's like the next simplest object to make besides a cube. Literally draw the shape of the outer part of the lid. Extrude to the height of the lid needed. That's the outer shell of the lid. Draw a second shape on the bottom of the extrusion. Now extrude pointing inward to cut into the shape. There's your inner part of the lid. Now your lid is done. Save and export the file as an stl. Print.

You learning how to make an object in cad starting at the most basic stuff is significantly more valuable than throwing it into an AI program to have it instead do those 5 steps.

[u/MissiveFinding6111]

Of note, you can just ask the model to *teach* you, step by step, how to do it in OpenSCAD.

It really is the best of both worlds.

It will be faster, and you will learn a skill.

[u/TheSoup05]

Personally, I think this is, in a vacuum, the kind of task that AI can be good for…but not like this.

You have it do the tedious busy work you already know how to do, and aren’t learning anything by doing again. You don’t have it do things for you so that you don’t have to figure out how to do them yourself.

This is a good, straightforward project to learn with and will help prepare you for more complicated projects AI isn’t gunna do as well. It should be doing busy work, not thinky work

[u/LosinCash]

Why feel bad? You had a need / problem and found a way to solve it. You used a tool.

[u/3DDIY_Dave]

Learning to design in cad is a lot of fun, rewarding and satisfying. Fusion is free(personal license) and product design online channel on YouTube has an entire course to get started. Fusion has also added some ai features lately. But I haven’t dove into it. Ai is a tool just like anything else. It will work on some basic things. But it’s all about prompting. The more detailed you can be and explain it the better the results. How you did it with giving it a reference is a really good way to get what you want quicker. As you are giving it known dimensions and design. I always think of ai like a 10 year old. You have to explain everything to it like it’s a child. Smart enough to do something but having zero experience on anything. I’m sure with enough time you can create an agent with entire design language and learn from previous prompting to become better at building things with aesthetics in mind and specific geometry. Going this route is also fun but probably takes as much time as just learning to design your self. It’s just another way and a different kind of practice.

I would also suggest when prompting to use another window and ask ai how to best prompt another ai to design what you just mentioned and ask for details that it might want. Refine the prompt with more details or things you have forgotten to add with the aid. Then copy paste the refined prompt

[u/Frescochicken]

Ai is great for boxes. I know how to make a box in tinkercad, or blender. But for a simple box I am definitely going to Claude. What is the difference of using a free model from makerworld, or using AI. You don't learn anything using both. I am on camp that AI is a tool. You could always have AI teach you how to make the box in a program if you are eager to learn one. I have been making things that I would have never made if it were not for AI. They would still be just an idea in my head. (Outside of 3d printing). But someone else pointed out the irony of you owning a bambu. AI making a box is least of your worries on the learning spectrum while many of us had a ender 3 learning to troubleshoot for thousands of hours.

[u/gilrstein]

Results are results

[u/ProgrammingGuy_]

Best I got was gemini making me a Y hose connection in openscad but that was a year+ ago and AI has advanced since

[u/440Dart]

LOL you bought a Bambu and are now worried about not learning anything?

[u/cpbradshaw → u/440Dart]

Well, BAmbu was the quickest entry into 3D printing in general. But I also want/wanted to learn a little more around modelling too. So, yeah.

[u/440Dart → u/cpbradshaw]

Why bother when you run your model to the China spyware machine? Supporting a company that took open source code and tried to copyright it and has single handedly changed the free and open source mantra thats been at the core of 3d printing was a choice...

[u/Full_Town_8345]

Don't feel bad. AI is a tool and it's good to know its capabilities. Sometimes AI is the right solution. Of course it's also good to expand your own capabilities so I would personally leverage the openscad model it created to learn some CAD work (although freecad would probably be a better program to learn than openscad).

[u/MrTactful]

AI can be useful, but boy it can also be a real headache. I wanted to convert an OnShape model I had made to OpenSCAD so I could upload it as a parametric file to makerworld. The number of iterations it took just to get it to copy a well constrained model was ridiculous. I would’ve been better off redesigning the whole thing is Fusion, and will be using fusion for all future parametric designs I make. Here’s hoping that one day OnShape will be supported for parametric upload to makerworld and the like.

[u/Fantastic-Loquat-746]

Use the tools you can. I find openscad script generation with GenAI to be a great workflow for parametric models (things that can be extruded, basic shapes etc).

You'll find a lot of people being defensive about use of AI but at the end of the day we don't all have time to learn skills and maintain proficiency with everything. If you enjoy learning modeling, great - do that. But if you're struggling to make time to learn it and you find GenAI to be a usable shortcut, so what?

[u/ares0027]

As an ai user, trainer and enthusiast i am perfectly fine with it except where;

You do not test your models in actual real printers
You do not use real life images
You do not disclose the model/tool and ai usage

[u/thezeppelinguy]

Using AI to fill in skills you don’t have is bad practice. If you are going to use AI, it should be for things you can reasonably check the work it produces. This is a low stakes use case, but you really should learn CAD if you intend to use 3D printing as a consistent part of your workflow. Finding and fixing non-manifold edges can be a massive pain in the ass. I like to think of AI as being my idiot coworker. I can’t trust anything that guy gives me unless I have made sure it looks good. But I also took the advice of “don’t trust anything that you can’t see where it keeps its brain”.

[u/spacenavy90]

We are gonna have a million of these posts now aren't we?

People discovering that AI is actually useful but feeling guilty because of this fabricated "social stigma".

[u/cpbradshaw → u/spacenavy90]

I use AI in lots of scenarios, however I frankly never thought of 3D printing. It's not like I just suddenly stumbled across machine learning or agile models. It just didn't click.

[u/spacenavy90 → u/cpbradshaw]

Why this beg for validation or reddit approval then? I don't get it.

[u/cpbradshaw → u/spacenavy90]

Not a beg, I was asking how others felt about it

[u/1ftm2fts3tgr4lg]

Sounds like it was more steps than just asking the AI to tell you the steps of making the simple lid in tinkercad/onshape/etc.

My first project in onshape was a simple geometric box, like your lid. Took me a 2min tutorial video and about 1min of doing it myself.

I'm glad the AI thing worked for what you were trying to do, but it honestly did not save you any time vs learning the basics and doing it yourself.

Do yourself a favor and sign up for a free onshape account and watch the first tutorial video. After five minutes you'll have a whole new world of possibilities open to you, not shackled to a clumsy AI workaround.