Skip to content
Download

Design a part in CAD Lab

CAD Lab designs parts by talking: say what you want, and it builds the part, checks it, measures it, and keeps every version so you can compare them. This guide makes a small bracket on openagents.com and downloads it.

CAD Lab on openagents.com is part of Pro (see Pricing). CAD on your own computer is free; see the end of this guide.

1. Ask for a part

Log in at openagents.com/login, start a new chat, and describe the part with its sizes:

Design a bracket to hold a 40 mm fan: a flat plate with the fan's four
mounting holes, and two slots at the bottom for M4 screws.

A card with the part shows under the answer: the part in 3D (drag to turn it, scroll or pinch to zoom), with its size and mass. Every change is rebuilt from its history and checked before it's saved: the solid has to be closed, and parts can't overlap where you didn't say they should.

2. Change it

Ask for changes the same way:

Make the plate 3 mm thick and round the corners.

In the card, a tap on a face or an edge shows its name. Then talk about it: "make the top face 2 mm lower". Each change is a new version, and the earlier ones are kept; Compare with on the card shows what changed from the version before.

3. Open the design page

Each design has its own page, listed under Your designs on the CAD Lab page. It has the 3D view, Files, and Versions.

  • Files: download the part as GLB, STEP, STL, or 3MF for a printer or another CAD program, or as a drawing (PDF or DXF).
  • Versions: every version, newest first, with what it changed.
  • Pull a face: pick a face and drag Pull, or type a distance in millimeters and press Preview, then Save change.
  • Delete this design removes every version.

In a project

A chat in a project keeps its designs in that project. Viewers of the project can open them; editors and the owner can change them.

Without Pro

Designs you already made stay yours: their page, 3D view, files, and versions stay open, and you can delete them. Making or changing a part needs Pro.

CAD on your own computer, free

The same CAD engine runs on your own computer with no login and no plan. It keeps designs in a folder on your computer and makes no calls to openagents.com. Today it's built from source: from a checkout of the OpenAgents repository, run cargo build --release -p cad-lab and put the cad-lab program on your PATH. Then, from a terminal:

openagents cad list
openagents cad open DOC
openagents cad render DOC --view iso
openagents cad export DOC --formats step,stl

openagents cad starts the CAD service on your computer when it isn't running. openagents cad --help lists every command, including 2D drawings and comparing versions.

Next: Follow a run from your phone.