CAD Should Be an Output

The claim

CAD, at least as we know it today, is a cul de sac for hardware enginering. The bluechip CAD/PLM vendors have had a good run, but I think they’re going to end up trapped in the hell which they created.

This is less about geometry and more about source of truth.

Once the groans up the back all quieten down, I’ll explain…

Why CAD (and why it irks me)

In my last post I used CAD as an example of how and why code will become the common language of non-software-engineering. I chose CAD—there’s other viable examples which I’m saving for another day—because it’s the fragment of the very-fragmented-tool-chain that irks me the most. I have a whole bit about when/why did mechanical engineers get lured into CAD sometime in the 00s but I’ll save that too…

The Irk

The Irk: CAD has become the source of truth for design work in many (most?) cases. “The ontology”, if you’ll let me be a Palantir guy for a moment. That’s awful! It’s a version control nightmare and it’s the totally wrong level of abstraction. A CAD model doesn’t reveal to you what it is or why it is required to exist. Nor does it tell you which dimensions are sacred, which are negotiable, and which are legacy accidents.

CAD should be an output

In short, CAD should be an output.

Meaning: the thing you version and review is the spec/constraints/parametric definition. CAD is generated, inspected, and shipped.

It’s almost certainly the case that AI should generate it (via deterministic and re-visitable code and parametric expressions).

AI will consume requirements, specs and functional and integration test cases.

Those will be YAML (or equiv).

YAML is code (for the sake of this argument, don’t @ me about this bit).

Everything is code.

Orchestration

Eventually, everything is about orchestration, and at that point, software engineers will pat us on the back and ask where we’ve been this whole time.

I’m watching this space because I think breaking free of CAD is when things get really interesting. A good number of teams working at it too (see comments).