Agent-Aided Design for Dynamic CAD Models

TL;DR

This paper introduces AADvark, an agentic system capable of designing complex 3D CAD assemblies with moving parts by integrating external tools and visual feedback, advancing the field of agent-aided design.

Contribution

The paper presents AADvark, a novel system that enables the creation of dynamic 3D assemblies with moving parts, addressing limitations of previous systems that could not handle such complexity.

Findings

AADvark successfully designs 3D assemblies with moving parts.

Integration of external constraint solvers improves spatial reasoning.

The system demonstrates the ability to reason about mechanical movements.

Abstract

In the past year, researchers have created agentic systems that can design real-world CAD-style objects in a training-free setting, a new variety of system that we call Agent-Aided Design. These systems place an agent in a feedback loop in which it generates an assembly of CAD model(s), visualizes the assembly, and then iteratively refines its assembly based on visual and other feedback. Despite rapid progress, a key problem remains: none of these systems can build complex 3D assemblies with moving parts. For example, no existing system can build a piston, a pendulum, or even a pair of scissors. In order for Agent-Aided Design to make a real impact in industrial manufacturing, we need a system that is capable of generating such 3D assemblies. In this paper we present a prototype of AADvark, an agentic system designed for this task. Unlike previous state-of-the-art systems, AADvark captures the dynamic part interactions with one or more degrees-of-freedom. This design decision allows AADvark to reason directly about assemblies with moving parts and can thereby achieve cross-cutting goals, including but not limited to mechanical movements. Unfortunately, current LLMs are imperfect spatial reasoners, a problem that AADvark addresses by incorporating external constraint solver tools with a specialized visual feedback mechanism. We demonstrate that, by modifying the agent's tools (FreeCAD and the assembly solver), we are able to create a strong verification signal which enables our system to build 3D assemblies with movable parts.