Iconic CAD Workflow Specification

Purpose and Goals

Iconic CAD Automation intends to democratize basic and advanced design capacity by allowing anyone to design anything in a matter of hours of study. This is done by converting technology into components represented graphically by icons. One then manipulates these icons, and with AI assist, produces technically correct CAD at LOD 500 finishing level.

At the scale of the core OSE campus such as Factor e Farm, we envision a core team of a small campus scale - around 240 people, with thousands in real-time collaboration remotely.

For something like Global Village Construction Set development, the generative schema-components in part library-assembly schema-system schema architecture below allows:

• 100+ designers working simultaneously at the core campus, and 1000+ with remote collaboration.
• machines sharing components
• parametric machine scaling
• faster iteration

It converts CAD from individual design work into industrial-scale collaborative engineering infrastructure.

Why This Matters for OSE

If Iconic CAD works correctly, most OSE contributors will never need to use CAD directly.

Instead, they participate through the icon layout environment, where systems are assembled visually from standardized modules.

Example contributors include:

• builders
• architects
• farmers
• mechanics
• workshop participants
• apprentices

These contributors can all participate in system design without requiring formal CAD training.

This dramatically lowers the barrier to participation and allows a much larger group of people to collaborate on engineering and infrastructure design.

The result is a major scaling advantage for Open Source Ecology, enabling distributed collaborative design across a much broader contributor base.

Does This Matter for the World?

The transformative idea is: turn engineering from drawing geometry into assembling validated generative modules.

If that works at global scale, it could fundamentally change how physical civilization infrastructure is designed.

That is why the idea is worth pursuing.

Current Status and Technical Risk

Right now, Iconic CAD is still a hypothesis.

Several things must work simultaneously for the system to succeed:

• Generative schemas must be robust.
• Interfaces between modules must be stable.
• Compilers must generate valid engineering.
• Validation must catch real-world failures.
• Libraries must grow large enough to be useful.
• Builders must actually adopt the system.

Most previous attempts at modular design fail because interfaces become unstable as complexity grows.

That is the biggest technical risk.

Industry Standards

What is the closest implementation of this in existing design workflows? https://chatgpt.com/share/69af5275-afa0-8010-8964-fe8aa2690c7b

It turns out that Iconic CAD is closest by historical analogy to the compiler itself, and second, to electronic design automation (automated wire routing). Otherwise, limited examples include:

• LEGO
• SimCity
• Parametric CAD
• FabLabs
• WikiHouse
• BIM

System	What it Contributes
LEGO system	Stable modular interfaces
SimCity	Icon-based system layout
Generative CAD	Rule-based geometry generation
Fab Labs	Digital → physical fabrication
Iconic CAD	All four combined

Example

We will start with the framing for a house as an example of how we use modular icons to design the framing for a house, and generate:

1. All the technical drawings
2. Build instructions for each module
3. Admissible parts specfication for each module, and admissible tooling specification for each module
4. Part list or callout for parts for each module included in the technical drawing
5. Quality Control requirements included in each technical drawing
6. Fastener schedules called out for each module
7. Overall assembly cost and weight
8. Overall assembly callouts by module number
9. Each technical drawing providing both a simple number, and a full description of module
10. Complete bill of materials for the entire wall framing including fasteners and consumables
11. A shadowboard design for a 24-person team build, and 48 person team build
12. Workflow instructions for the overall assembly, based on 24 people.
13. Structural and thermal calculations - FEA compiler

Meta

1. For each module, role allocation based on name database (24 or 48)

Scope

Method developed for Seed Eco-Home first, then for all machines.

For the home:

• 1000 parts. List here - https://chatgpt.com/share/69a8e9ac-709c-8010-86b5-e25a36d512fb
• 1000 modules
• 1000 tools
• 1000 skills

Basic Taxonomy of Part Library Assets Generated

• Icon - for iconic design
• Thumbnail of actual CAD. Later to be developed into stylized
• CAD
• Schema. Part, assembly, system, ecosystem.

Icon Specification

• SVG
• Human modifiable in SVG graphics program for passing new parameters from icon. Implemented by CAD parsing of icon and its human editable attributes.
• Icon attributes can also be modified in schema

Process Specification

• Based on explicit taxonomy of assets, published on the wiki
• Process is designed for automation with AI, leveraging library-scale development that can be distributed
• Schemas are then post-processed to wiki libraries and documentation
• Continuous Improvement. Versions of schema and process are maintained via git or other version control
• Submissions must be tested. Full documentation must be derivable.

Schema Validation

• Schemas produce desired geometry, stress tested for the entire parameter space with edge cases addressed
• Edge case validation
• Documentation is proven - correct technical drawings, calculations, BOMs, procedures, fasteners, etc.
• Assembly schemas validated for correct assembly and post-processing (feature filling such as blocking, etc)

Schema Outcomes

• Generation of modifications
• Library icon in svg - for part libraries on wiki, parsing SVG images for iconic CAD automation
• BOM
• Technical Drawing. For full assembly - full building plan check package
• Exploded part diagram
• Build procedure
• Costing
• 3D print file
• Calculations - weight of assembly, strength, thermal, fluid flow, etc.

House Taxonomy

• Use moduletype_part_attributes.fileextension - etc
  • Moduletypes corresponds to the 20-30 trades involved: foundation, framing, electrical, plumbing, cabinets, etc.
  • Part is the name of part (a wire, pvc fitting, piece of lumber)
  • Attributes - includes things like size. Version is its specific identity such as size, etc. For example, a plumbing fitting can be 1/2" or 3/4" etc. Library contains all of them, and to be universal, whole library is used in any given task

Super-Schema Outcomes

• Part library generation for wiki - code for creating library, including correct part naming.
• Part library generation - image uploads

CAD Schema Specification

• Technical Drawing
• BOM information
• QC information
• Build Procedure information
• Includes source links
• Includes labor estimation based on industry standards per unit (square footage per hour, etc)
• Includes ports - how other modules and parts connect to this

Post-Processor Compilers

• Library Generators (CAD, schema, icon, thumbnail)
• Stylized graphics can be produced such as for LAIs
• Full package submitted to building department
• Exploded part diagrams
• Build instructionals - above module level

Schema Architecture

Schema Structure

• Schemas include parameters - how to generate geometry
• Ports - how parts interconnect
• Schemas are annotated with comments to make them transparent.

Process Structure

• Generative Schema (parts from parameters)
• Schema syntactic validation
• Schema semantic validation
• Compiler
• Postprocessor
• Assembly schema

4 Layer Structure

• Generative schemas → produce standardized components
• Component libraries → stable reusable modules
• Assembly schemas → machines and systems
• System generator - These generate entire machines parametrically - tractor_generator(power, width, lift_capacity)

In between these there are validators - syntactic and semantic, as separate steps - at each level. Thus, after generative schema, we have syntactic and semantic validation, then compilation into CAD. Then we generate part libraries. Since we would like to generate multiple parts in a run, our compiler will allow us to generate a few files at a time. The compiler will also create any post-processing steps at the Assembly Schema level.

Example

Iconic CAD Workflow Example