AI-assisted documentation

Mariscal-Melgar, Jorge Cesar

doi:10.3390/computers14120521

AI-assisted documentation

An implosion animation method for CAD designs

Publication date

2025-11-28

Document type

Forschungsartikel

Author

Mariscal-Melgar, Jorge Cesar

Organisational unit

Fertigungstechnik

DTEC.bw

DOI

10.3390/computers14120521

URI

https://openhsu.ub.hsu-hh.de/handle/10.24405/24003

Project

Dezentrale digitale Produktion für die urbane Wertschöpfung (FCDW)

Publisher

MDPI

Series or journal

Computers

ISSN

2073-431X

Periodical volume

14

Periodical issue

12

Article ID

521

Peer-reviewed

✅

Part of the university bibliography

✅

Funding(s)

Publikationsfonds der HSU/UniBw H

Language

English

Keyword

CAD

Large Language Models (LLM)

AI

FLOSS

Open-source hardware

Libre hardware

Open-source software

3D animation

Assembly animation

dtec.bw

Abstract

Free/Libre and Open-Source Hardware requires documentation that ensures replicability and accessibility for both experts and non-experts. Existing tools for generating assembly animations are often difficult to use, require specialized knowledge, and are poorly suited for instructional or workshop contexts. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a method for generating implosion-style CAD animations that separates transformation logic from geometry. The method enables fast, low-effort creation of animations through either manual grouping or large language model (LLM) automation. The approach is validated through a web-based implementation that can produce complete animations within minutes using mesh or boundary-representation input. The system supports step-wise playback, interactive part grouping, and export of vector-based views for technical documentation. Evaluation includes nine models ranging from simple parts to assemblies with over 1400 components. The system successfully generated animations for all models, with the LLM-based schema generation achieving high sequence coherence and coverage in most cases. The proposed method enables scalable, reusable, and version-controlled animation workflows that are particularly suited for open-source documentation, manufacturing education, and distributed design environments.

Description

This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Version

Published version

Access right on openHSU

Metadata only access