I run a local community meetup for makers in my area. For our October session, I shared an open-source AI CAD skill pack I have been building to help design functional 3D-printed parts. This is not "take a picture and have AI spit out a messy mesh." It uses open-source CAD tools like the Craft suite and FreeCAD so you can build real parametric parts and learn how they are put together. The skill pack is not perfect yet, but it is at a point where I want to share it with the wider community so we can keep improving it together. So far I have only built and run this with Gemini. That said, Claude, GPT, or any model that accepts images and can make MCP tool calls to the Craft suite should be able to run it too, including local models if you have the hardware and time. If you do not have the Craft tools installed, the skill pack also knows how to use the FreeCAD CLI, though that path is not as fleshed out as the multi-step Craft workflow yet. The article walks through the whole pipeline, and here is the core idea. Instead of burning tokens, time, and filament guessing at 3D shapes in the dark, you start by taking photos of your hardware next to a ruler for scale. The AI reads those photos and drafts a 1:1 millimeter 2D blueprint with multiple views and dimensions. You pause right there, check the blueprint against your physical part, and dial in any adjustments in 2D where edits are fast and cheap. Once you approve the blueprint, you tell it to go. It drives SolidCraft or FreeCAD to construct your assembly step by step in a real parametric timeline. Afterwards, you can open the CAD file, click through every sketch, extrude, and cut it made, and use that history tree both to tweak tolerances and to learn how complex joints are designed. Just like a nail gun helped carpenters frame faster without replacing craftsmanship, I think AI can do the same thing for CAD when it is wired into real engineering tools. I am going to keep building and refining this no matter what, and I would love to hear your feedback or see what you build with it. Thank you! Fargo3D community!   submitted by   /u/spoonchild   to   r/BambuLab [link]   [comments]