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The AI-powered 3D CAD IDE — edit code, visualize in 3D, and reshape your designs with natural language.

281 starsRust

Vibe Code your 3D Models

by burrnii·Feb 27, 2026·61 points·20 comments
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AI Analysis

●MidShip ItWizardry

OpenSCAD IDE with AI refactor, but parser is immature and audience is niche.

Strengths
  • •Pure-Rust stack (Bevy, openscad-rs, csgrs) means no external tools, single-binary distribution, and async AI calls don't block rendering.
  • •Real-time 3D viewport with click-aware context passed to LLM adds genuinely useful interaction layer over plain code chat.
Weaknesses
  • •Early-stage OpenSCAD parser doesn't handle complex scripts; author explicitly warns rough edges will emerge quickly.
  • •Narrow use case: parametric 3D modeling is a solved category (Fusion 360, FreeCAD, OpenSCAD itself); natural-language wrapper doesn't change that.
Target Audience

3D designers, CAD hobbyists, engineers who prefer code-based parametric modeling

Similar To

OpenSCAD · Fusion 360 AI · Cursor for CAD

Post Description

Hi HN,

I’m the creator of SynapsCAD, an open-source desktop application I've been building that combines an OpenSCAD code editor, a real-time 3D viewport, and an AI assistant.

You can write OpenSCAD code, compile it directly to a 3D mesh, and use an LLM (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, ...) to modify the code through natural language.

Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN8a5UozS5Q

A bit about the architecture:

- It’s built entirely in Rust.

- The UI and 3D viewport are powered by Bevy 0.15 and egui. - It uses a pure-Rust compilation pipeline (openscad-rs for parsing and csgrs for constructive solid geometry rendering) so there are no external tools or WASM required. - Async AI network calls are handled by Tokio in the background to keep the Bevy render loop smooth.

Disclaimer: This is a very early prototype. The OpenSCAD parser/compiler doesn't support everything perfectly yet, so you will definitely hit some rough edges if you throw complex scripts at it.

I mostly just want to get this into the hands of people who tinker with CAD or Rust. I'd be super happy for any feedback, architectural critiques, or bug reports—especially if you can drop specific OpenSCAD snippets that break the compiler in the GitHub issues!

GitHub (Downloads for Win/Mac/Linux): https://github.com/ierror/synaps-cad

Happy to answer any questions about the tech stack or the roadmap!

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