AI CAD review: DFM checks and team review on the 3D model

Today, we’re launching AI CAD reviews in ClearHandoff.

Currently, design reviews often look like this:

• Half the meeting goes to DFM issues that would be obvious if someone checked the CAD model against the shop’s machines and your design guideline.
• What gets caught depends on who’s in the room. When, say, the sheet metal expert is out, nobody notices the problems at the bends.
• The other half of the meeting is the discussion that actually needs the team. But it runs on CAD screenshots in PowerPoint and the notes end up in Word, away from the model.

AI can now reason about a design much like a mechanical engineer. That should change how we run design reviews.

We believe AI should do the first round of every design review.

We built AI CAD reviews in ClearHandoff around that principle. The AI flags DFM problems and anything against your design rules. Both the AI and your team review the CAD model itself, not screenshots in a PPT.

Here is how it works in detail:

1. AI first: Before you share a design with the team, you start an AI review. The AI checks for general DFM issues and for your company’s own rules: does it work with your manufacturing processes, does it follow your design guideline? Your rules can be long PDFs or simple text in your own words. In the video above the AI catches holes placed too close to a bend.

2. Collaboration: Then you invite everyone who has input on the design: your design colleagues, manufacturing engineering, quality, procurement, your supplier. Comments sit directly on the geometry and anyone can follow up in the same thread. The sheet metal expert answers the question where it was asked.

3. Versions and approvals: Fixes go into the next version of the model, linked to the threads that asked for them. Reviewers see the 3D model and its drawings together, as one package with a shared revision. Once all threads are resolved, they approve it in ClearHandoff. Manufacturing gets everything from there, no email chains or old versions flying around.

AI CAD review builds on everything we learned from our AI drawing review, and it works the same way. We’re not tied to one AI model. We test every new frontier model against our benchmarks and switch when it’s better. Your review profiles and checklists work for drawings and 3D models alike, and a package holds both, so a release gets reviewed and approved in one place.

We’re super excited to get this into your hands.

Try it at clearhandoff.com/cad.