[randusername]

> Create a vertical engine-cylinder form with a central barrel, 12 cooling fins, a base flange, and a top cap. Add a 35 degree angled spark-plug boss with a coaxial through-hole.

I don't feel like text-to-CAD is a viable workflow for me because of the "language barrier". I would need, like, a visual dictionary of terms.

I'd almost be more excited to see the opposite, a benchmark/dataset of ME-blessed CAD-to-text descriptions so that I can build up vocabulary.

Absent that, what's the best I can do, find a machine design book secondhand with a glossary?

[jm_l]

Read through the McMaster catalogue.

https://www.mcmaster.com/

My coworker was given this advice when they first started their mechanical engineering and design job. They originally thought it was some kind of hazing and after an hour of reading couldn’t put it down.

[alnwlsn]

Here is the full prompt for that part:

>The main cylinder axis is vertical along Z and centered at the origin.

>Create a central barrel with diameter 36 mm and height 70 mm, bottom at Z = 0.

>Around the barrel, add 12 horizontal circular cooling fins. Each fin is 2 mm thick in Z, has outside diameter 62 mm, and is spaced every 5 mm from Z = 10 mm to Z = 65 mm.

>Add a thicker base flange at the bottom, outside diameter 70 mm and thickness 8 mm, with six vertical mounting holes of diameter 5 mm on a 56 mm bolt circle.

>Add a top cap cylinder, diameter 44 mm and height 8 mm, from Z = 70 mm to Z = 78 mm.

>Add an angled spark-plug boss protruding from the side of the top cap. The boss is a cylinder of diameter 12 mm and length 24 mm, angled upward at 35 degrees from horizontal, with its axis pointing outward in the positive X direction.

>Add a 5 mm diameter hole through the boss along its own axis.

>Add small 1 mm fillets to the outer fin edges and base flange edges.

And the description still falls short, such as no room between the flange and fins to install nuts.

What a nightmare to describe all this in text! when the language of drafting is able to describe it perfectly, wordlessly and unambiguous, in a single drawing sheet. Yes, there are a few thing to learn beyond "draw a picture", but it's not a lot.

You can claim it's for "people who don't know CAD", but I have my doubts that those same people without those skills would be able to describe what they want in text.