https://steptocut.comAI turns 3D models into drawings ready to cut: cutting drawings, DXF files and nesting from a STEP file.https://steptocut.com/blog/how-to-drive-autodesk-inventor-with-ai/Inventor can be controlled from outside, with scripts written and run by an AI agent. What that means in practice, what you need, what stays with the designer, and where it goes wrong.https://steptocut.com/blog/mistakes-automating-cutting-drawings/An AI agent drafting from a STEP file is fast. It is also fast at repeating the same mistake on every part. The mistakes our AI-driven process made, and the rule each one left behind.https://steptocut.com/blog/find-identical-and-mirrored-parts-in-step/Yes, and it is where an AI agent saves the most time: hundreds of drawings become far fewer. It is also where it can get a plate cut backwards. How the agent tells identical, mirrored and similar parts apart, and where a person must decide.https://steptocut.com/blog/can-ai-read-dxf-files/A DXF is plain text, but an AI model should not read it raw. It writes a small script that reads the drawing for it. What that looks like, and how to set it up in four steps.https://steptocut.com/blog/plate-thickness-from-step-file/Ask an AI agent for the thickness of every plate in a STEP file and it will answer, confidently. Whether the answer is right depends on the method it uses. Four methods compared, and the one we let it trust.https://steptocut.com/blog/verify-ai-generated-cad-output/An AI agent reports success confidently, and its checks can agree with its mistakes. The signs that a measuring script is lying, why "0 errors" and "ALL OK" prove nothing, and the verification rules we apply to every drawing, DXF and nest.https://steptocut.com/blog/check-quantities-dxf-against-bom/Quantities written in the notes of a delivery DXF must match the parts list, times the number of assemblies, with left-hand parts counted once. The rule that decides it, the error that put twenty extra plates in a delivery, and the parser traps an AI agent must handle.https://steptocut.com/blog/drive-inventor-from-terminal-without-mcp/There is no official Inventor MCP server, and you do not need one. An AI agent can drive Inventor 2025 over COM from the command line. The method that works, the three that do not, the error codes you will see, and the rules that keep a batch run from breaking.https://steptocut.com/blog/dxf-block-name-collision-merge/Combine several DXF sheets into one and some sections, details or weld symbols show content from another sheet. No error, and every count says OK. Inventor numbers its blocks from zero on every sheet. How an AI agent detects the collision by content and remaps it.https://steptocut.com/blog/export-dxf-pdf-from-inventor-script/Batch export from Inventor drawings fails in ways that name nothing. The DXF translator needs an ini file, the PDF needs the right context and all colours set to black, and orphan documents kill the next export. A working VBScript and a table of failures.https://steptocut.com/blog/ezdxf-text-width-measure/ezdxf's bounding box underestimates text width by up to 44%, and a checker built on the same box reported zero overflows on 147 cells with the note sticking out. The font-based measurement that works, and the rule of one measuring function for placing, framing and testing.https://steptocut.com/blog/inventor-api-error-codes/Inventor's COM errors rarely name the real cause, and some calls succeed while doing nothing. A reference of the errors and silent failures we met automating Inventor 2025 from scripts, with the cause and the fix for each.https://steptocut.com/blog/inventor-balloons-assembly-drawing-api/Inventor's auto-balloon is not in the API, and balloon numbers are BOM items, not your part codes. How we put delivery codes in balloons, the placement rules measured on a drawing a designer approved, text height per view scale, and the save that rolled the file back.https://steptocut.com/blog/inventor-base-view-orientation-step/Bodies from a STEP file sit at any angle, and the obvious view mappings fail. Two methods that work in Inventor 2025, measuring three trial views and straightening the body with a matrix, plus the camera trick that gives wrong but plausible dimensions.https://steptocut.com/blog/inventor-dimension-styles-api/You change the dimension style in the template and nothing happens. Inventor keeps styles in three places, the API exposes only part of them, and some properties fail without an error. Where styles really live, what the API can and cannot set, and the procedure that works in Inventor 2025.https://steptocut.com/blog/inventor-hole-overall-dimensions-api/Automatic dimensions do not work on STEP solids, so an AI agent has to place them itself. How to find the extreme points with geometry intents, why circles reported zero holes, how to keep dimensions from overlapping, and the dimensioning rules a shop actually accepts.https://steptocut.com/blog/inventor-sheet-metal-flat-pattern-step/A bent plate from a STEP file is a dumb solid with no sheet-metal data. The four API lines that turn it into a sheet-metal part and unfold it, the test that tells a real bend from a flat plate, and the flat view that silently draws the folded part instead.https://steptocut.com/blog/inventor-title-block-from-spreadsheet/AddTitleBlock with prompt strings returns success and leaves every field empty. Most title block fields are property fields that read the model's iProperties. Set the iProperties on the part, update the drawing, and read the register with the invariant culture. The working iLogic code and the traps.https://steptocut.com/blog/merge-dxf-files-ezdxf-gotchas/Combining DXF files with ezdxf looks like a copy loop. Then dimensions disappear, blocks go missing, units turn into metres and the audit says zero errors. The traps we hit when an AI agent merged drawings into client files, and the rule for each.https://steptocut.com/blog/merge-identical-parts-renumber-drawings/Hundreds of drawings become far fewer once identical parts are merged, then every code must be renumbered in the part, the drawing and the note. How an AI agent compares flat profiles, which parts it must never merge, and why renaming files on disk breaks Inventor.https://steptocut.com/blog/merged-dxf-dimension-style-collision/Paste several DXF drawings into one sheet and the dimensions change: text bigger or smaller, arrows huge, dimensions stuck to the part. Nothing is broken. A DXF dimension carries the name of its style, not the values. The mistake that cost us a month, and the per-drawing style name that fixed it.https://steptocut.com/blog/mirrored-left-hand-parts-sx/In a mirrored assembly, some plates can just be turned over and some must be cut as a separate left-hand part. A bevel or countersink on one face decides it, and the flat outline cannot see it. The five verdicts our check gives, the 1 mm tolerance, and the copied part that passed four checks and would have been cut backwards.https://steptocut.com/blog/nesting-sheet-metal-python-dxf/Our nesting for 12000 x 2500 plates is a short Python program, not a commercial package. Profiles become polygons, polygons become rasters, and an FFT finds every free position at once. The method, the yield it gave against bounding boxes, and the bugs that showed 107% yield or overlapping parts with no error.https://steptocut.com/blog/render-dxf-to-png-for-ai/An AI agent that only reads numbers will approve a wrong drawing. Rendering the DXF to an image lets it look. The ezdxf and PyMuPDF recipe that works on large files, the filter that broke it for a month, the pixel limit, and the renderers that do not draw dimensions.https://steptocut.com/blog/run-ilogic-rule-from-outside-inventor/The iLogic automation object is there, but from VBScript every call that takes a document fails. The bridge that works in Inventor 2025: a VBA macro that loads the rule from a file and runs it, and a launcher that starts the macro safely. Steps, code, failures and guardrails.https://steptocut.com/blog/step-multibody-to-part-files-inventor/The STEP arrives as one part with hundreds of solid bodies. To draw each one you need one part file per body. The iLogic code that does it, why you never convert the client's file, and the traps: bodies looked up by index, gaps in the numbering, bodies that will not delete.https://steptocut.com/blog/turn-ai-agent-mistakes-into-rules/An AI agent forgets between sessions, so a lesson written as a note gets read and ignored. What works for us: every error becomes an executable rule with the command inside, numbers live in code, checks live in the producer, and debugging starts by stopping. The method behind months of CAD automation.https://steptocut.com/blog/dxf-dimension-text-shows-brackets/Ask an AI agent to read the dimensions of a DXF and it often reports <>. That is not a bug in the AI. What it means, where the drawn value lives, and the script that reads it correctly.https://steptocut.com/blog/how-to-dimension-bevels-on-cutting-drawings/An AI agent can place bevel dimensions on hundreds of drawings. But a bevel angle without its side is half an instruction. Where to show the bevel, how to write it, and the sign that tells the cutter which face to cut.https://steptocut.com/blog/inventor-drawing-dimensions-api/Yes: an AI agent can write and run the Inventor API code that places dimensions. Here is the code it starts from, with the same API calls we ran on a real drawing, and the four things that trip it up: units, intents, placement and checking the result.