The FoDES drafting desk: a line sketch to a 200-part assembly, by conversation
Around a recording of FoDES — Future of Design & Engineering Software with Roopinder Tara, NativeCAD was handed a one-line sketch of a tilt-top drafting desk and asked to "model this". What follows is the desk it built — top, hinge, gas struts, telescoping cantilever legs, drawer pedestal — and then, on the next request, every bracket, bolt and screw that holds it together. No sketcher, no mouse: each step is a sentence, each result a watertight B-rep body the kernel checked before it answered.
Drag inside the scene to orbit, scroll to zoom. The slider takes the assembly apart: drawers slide out on their runners, every screw leaves along its own axis. Materials are per body class: laminate top, powder-coated frame, black MDF carcass, zinc hardware.
The assembly, as shipped
Every figure below is measured from the shipped STEP and its verified GLB. Nothing on this page is a typed-in number.
What we got, prompt by prompt
Each card is one snapshot the kernel exported at that point in the conversation — the prompt as typed, and the STEP that came back. Same camera on every shot, so the progression is the comparison. Nothing was redrawn for the page; each STEP below is the one from the session.
make this a website section that we can link to about the podcast appearance
do one page for this, then another for pushing it further
That is this page, and the second one: the same STEP taken apart on a scrubbable exploded clip, a bill of materials with masses, and the centre of mass — the answers an engineer asks for next.
The fastener pass
A desk that renders is not a desk that assembles. The connector pass is where a text-to-CAD tool either knows what a hinge needs or does not — and it is the pass a human designer would otherwise spend an afternoon on.
Replay it yourself
The whole desk is build_desk.py — a short script that writes the op list
desk_ops.json the MCP replays through cad_batch. Change the width, the tilt or
the hinge line at the top of the script and every fastener follows.
Loading the op list…
Try this yourself — install NativeCAD for Claude today
Everything on this page was built by talking to Claude with the NativeCAD MCP installed. The same kernel installs in about a minute and is free for personal, academic and research work with a free registered key (email confirmation, one form at featureboard.ai/register); the evaluation loop needs no key at all.
Claude Desktop: open the downloaded .mcpb and it installs as an extension.
Claude chat: open the .plugin, or attach it in a chat and press Save.
Claude Code and other MCP clients: one npx line (the tarball today, the registry name once published). Then ask for a part — a bracket,
a shaft, a desk — and get a STEP file back. Commercial use beyond the 60 days is one seat per person.
Take the files
The STEP is the exact AP242 B-rep of every body, re-imported and tessellated by the generator before the GLB shipped. The standalone viewer needs no server.
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