New AI tools poised to revolutionise 3D engineering

May 11, 2023

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is currently revolutionising industries and has finally touched the 3D engineering space. The latest wave of AI is poised to be a game-changer for designers and engineers who see the significance of the tools in their daily workflow. The 3D engineering world will feel the impact in ways that range from extensions of what is already possible to surprising new capabilities and functionality. Now let’s run you through the impact of AI on the 3D engineering world.

Whole new ways of 3D visualisation: AI-integrated tools like Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) have added some interesting features when it comes to reconstructions and digitalisation of the physical world. Thanks to the tool, we are now at the stage where it is possible to create a full 3D, volumetric representation of items previously in a 2D model. The AI-powered rendering models work by ingesting multiple 2D viewpoints, and then performing some internal calculations and extrapolations, and finally generating a 3D model out of those 2D images.

Reliable design assistance and simulation: capitalising on the huge dataset used in training it, AI can provide better design guidance and optimisation for engineers. An AI working within the building information modelling (BIM) software will have seen enough successful examples of how constructions are being planned and know exactly how to seamlessly provide an answer to a prompt. It can also offset the burdens that come with putting more fitting finishing touches on a building and likewise make the building look more appealing.

Recognition of 3D objects: similar to the way that AI has become quite adept at feature recognition in photos, it can bring similar capabilities to point cloud data, helping to pick out hyper-specific features within the sea of scanned points or triangles. An example here could be the AI’s ability to identify the walls and ceiling of a scanned building, or holes and other features in a complex computer-aided design (CAD) assembly.

Irrespective of the limitations of the graphic capabilities of engineering software, AI might be the only answer in the coming years as it perfects with time, thereby helping designers and engineers to tackle their work and shape the world around us with greater efficacy, more creativity and new levels of virtuosity.