This page is also available in Dutch: Over mij.
I want everyone to be able to design, without licence hassle. I am Marijn, a mechanical engineer and former FreeCAD developer. On this site I track how AI is changing CAD work.
My story started with a simple wish: to use CAD on my own computer, without an expensive licence and without asking anyone for permission. For years FreeCAD was the only serious option for that. I helped build on it for years, with one goal: that a professional could do their daily work in it. That has not happened yet.
Then it suddenly moved fast. Thanks to AI, more options appeared in a few years than in the twenty before, and it is almost impossible to keep up. Hence this site: I test what comes along, from new models to CAD programs you steer with a language model, and I write down what I see myself. Sometimes a long story, sometimes a single line. If something does not work, I say so.
The goal is simple: that you and I keep our own designs in our own hands. Open source where it works, commercial where it is genuinely better, and never recommending something I have not tried myself.
What you will find here
- News: what AI models and CAD programs can do now, in plain language
- Tests: I let models and tools loose on real jobs and show the results
- Benchmarks: the lists that measure how well a model designs, and what they do and do not measure
- Explanations: terms like kernel, MCP and benchmarks, without the computer jargon
My background
I am a mechanical engineer and my speciality is mechanical design: part design, assemblies and the road to production. BIM and electronics only appear here when they are relevant; my heart is in mechanical design.
As a former FreeCAD developer I know that program from the inside, including the limits a developer does not always dare to name. That is exactly why I am honest here about what a tool can and cannot do.
Independent advice
The parties that give CAD advice most often are VARs: resellers who also sell the software they advise on. That colours the advice: the product they earn on is rarely the product you need.
I sell nothing. No licences, no seats, no partner commission. That is also why I will not recommend an expensive licence to you if your work does not call for one. I work with the tools myself, test them on your work and advise what fits, even if that means staying with your current supplier, or moving to something that is free.
Get in touch?
Curious what AI could mean for your design process, or not sure where to start? Book a no-obligation introduction and we will look at where the opportunities are together.