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Overview

ProDex can read and analyze CAD files. Upload a DWG, DXF, or STEP/STP file and ask Dexter about it: what the part is, what text and part marks it carries, what components make up the assembly, what its dimensions are. Dexter parses the file’s geometry and metadata and answers with structured findings — tables, a synthesized bill of materials, and rendered images — inline in the conversation. CAD analysis is read-only. ProDex is not a CAD authoring tool or a CAD viewer: there is no drawing canvas, no interactive 3D viewport, no file conversion or geometry export, and nothing in your file is ever modified. Think of it as a fast engineering reader that turns a drawing package or 3D model into facts you can act on — most usefully, as the starting point for BOMs and model inputs.
There is no dedicated CAD page. You won’t find a CAD tab in the sidebar, a viewer widget, or an “Open in CAD” action on files. The entire capability lives in chat with Dexter.

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Where It Lives

CAD analysis happens in three steps, all inside a conversation:
  1. Attach a CAD file to a chat with Dexter, the same way you attach any other file. It is stored alongside your other uploaded files.
  2. Nothing happens automatically. Upload triggers no analysis, no extraction, and no thumbnail generation — the file just lands in your factory’s uploads.
  3. Ask Dexter about it. Analysis starts with your first question (“What is this part?”, “Give me a BOM”, “Show me the geometry”) and findings stream back into the chat.
CAD files do not flow through Data sources or Pipelines — those paths are built for tabular and document data. A CAD file is only ever analyzed conversationally.

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What You Can Do

  • Identify the file — format and version, units, overall extents and bounding box.
  • Read the drawing — layer structure with inferred sub-assembly grouping, entity counts, and every text label with its position (DWG/DXF).
  • Synthesize a BOM — unique part marks grouped by sub-assembly with solid-body counts and joint callouts (DWG/DXF), or the component and assembly graph of a STEP file.
  • Render views — full-drawing 2D overviews, targeted crops around a part mark, layer, or region, and 3D views from named angles, a custom orientation, or a multi-angle spin.
  • Measure — model dimensions, per-sub-assembly sizes, and distinct plate thicknesses.
Findings and rendered images stream into the chat; CAD analysis does not convert or export your file into other CAD formats. See Supported Formats for exactly what each format yields, and CAD Analysis for the workflow end to end.

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How Results Connect to the Rest of ProDex

CAD analysis never writes into other parts of your factory on its own. Findings land in the chat; what happens next is up to you:
  • BOMs — the bill of materials Dexter synthesizes from a CAD file is a chat result, not a record in the BOM section. If you want real entities and BOMs created from the findings, ask Dexter to build them as an explicit follow-up step.
  • Reports — to turn findings into a shareable deliverable (Excel, PDF, slides), ask Dexter for a report.
  • Exported geometry — CAD analysis reads and renders; it does not produce exported CAD geometry files (DXF, STL, OBJ, GLB, PLY) that you can download or open in other tools. What you take away are the findings, tables, and rendered images in the chat — roll those into a report as above if you need a shareable deliverable.
  • Simulation and planning — extracted structure can inform models and planning inputs, but only through you (or Dexter, on your instruction). Nothing is linked automatically.
Analysis is not persisted. Every analysis re-reads the file from scratch: findings are not cached, indexed, made searchable, or attached to a project unless you explicitly ask Dexter to capture them — for example by saving key facts to memories or building BOMs from them. Rendered images are shown inline in chat but are not saved as durable artifacts.
If your parts have significant curved geometry (fillets, holes, cylindrical features), upload STEP rather than DWG/DXF where you have the choice — STEP is meshed with curves included, while the DWG/DXF 3D path renders planar faces only, so 3D views and measurements of curved DWG/DXF parts are incomplete. See Supported Formats for details.