Case study
From a hand sketch to a structured CATIA engineering workflow
A sheet metal bracket from vehicle development: what an AI assistant working with CadPilot made of a freehand sketch – and what it did not.
The process
- Hand sketch
- AI interpretation
- Engineering assumptions
- Engineering rules
- CATIA execution
- Verification
The task: a bracket made of 1.4 mm sheet steel with flanged collar holes, crash beads, attachments tilted by 15° and spot weld flanges – as a hand sketch with few dimensions, set by an experienced vehicle-development engineer.
Stage by stage
Interpretation
Recognised the sketch as an oblique view; derived position and heights from the task author’s axis system.
Assumptions instead of questions
15 open questions became a proposal with eleven reasoned assumptions – confirmed by the author of the task.
Rules
Knowledge base with 132 rules; the task author’s practice rules (bend run-out, bead elongation, e-coat drainage) turned into checkable rules.
Planning and checks
Spot welds, load cases and sheet metal rules recalculated; the locating planner found a misaligned slot in our own proposal.
CATIA execution
Prepared, not yet carried out: the bracket is an acceptance step of the first test in a real CATIA.
Verification
Rule check without findings; concept model for illustration built with a free CAD kernel, not in CATIA.
Who did what – and what was not done
AI assistant
- interpreted requirements from sketch and text
- identified missing information and filled it with reasoned assumptions
- wrote the proposal and asked the questions
CadPilot
- provided engineering knowledge with sources
- planned and checked spot welds, loads, locating and sheet metal rules
- prepared the CATIA steps as an acceptance test
Not done
- no FEM or crash simulation replaced
- no manufacturability or engineering release given
- the part not built in CATIA (follows with the validation)
- no responsibility taken – that stays with the engineer
Validation in CATIA
Carrying this out in a real CATIA V5 is the next milestone. Afterwards this page will show screenshots, steps, duration compared with manual work, limits and lessons learned – not before.
Your use case
Do you have a similar workflow? In a pilot we try it on your data, in your environment.