Additional Features

Generative AI

PartCAD is capable of using generative AI to create parts. The generated part definitions are persisted as Python or CAD scripts. If needed, the part definition can be regenerated from the prompt.

Google and OpenAI models are supported. The following configuration is required:

# ~/.partcad/config.yaml
googleApiKey: <...>
openaiApiKey: <...>

Security

As code-CAD is gaining popularity in the community, the topic of supply chain security and the risk of running arbitrary third-party code is not sufficiently addressed. PartCAD aims to close that gap for open-source software in a way that exceeds anything commercial software has to offer at the moment.

PartCAD is capable of rendering scripted parts (CadQuery and build123d use Python) in sandboxed environments.

At the moment it is only useful from a dependency management perspective (it allows third-party packages to bring their Python dependencies without polluting your own Python environment), in the future, PartCAD aims to achieve security isolation of the sandboxed environments. That will fundamentally change the security implications of using scripted models shared online.