[Chatbot Copilot] - We Built a FeatureScript AI Assistant That Outperforms ChatGPT

guillauem_d

Hey everyone,

I’m a mechanical engineer, and I’ve been working with FeatureScript at my company for about a year now. Honestly, it’s been tough. Tools like ChatGPT suck at FeatureScript, which is frustrating when you know how useful they are for more familiar languages like JavaScript or Python. Unless you're a FeatureScript expert, I think we can all agree that productivity takes a big hit compared to more common languages because there’s no good LLM-powered copilot to help out.

So, we fixed that !  We built our own AI assistant, specifically for FeatureScript !

It’s not perfect, but it’s way better than ChatGPT in this area. This isn’t just a basic GPT model with the Onshape Standard Library as input—two of our machine learning engineers spent six months building it. They used a technique based on a paper called “Large language model multi-agent collaborations”. I’m no, expert but basically, they created a system with reasoning steps, multiple agents working together to analyze questions, generate code, cross-check the documentation, test, and iterate until the output works. It uses RAG, agent-based reasoning, and multiple LLM calls to get the job done. Internally, it’s been a game-changer for how we work with FeatureScript. And while this tool clearly doesn't make us better than a featurescript expert, it does make us infinitely more productive.

Don’t get me wrong, if we had 10 million dollars to label tons of FeatureScript data and fine-tune a big model, that would be even better. But for now, this approach is giving us a really good productivity boost, and we’re pretty excited about it.

Now we’re wondering if we should share this with the outside world. There are a couple of big questions:

• Would people pay for it? Let’s be real: running all these models and doing this whole chain-of-thought process isn’t cheap. Plus, they put so much work into this. They’d have to charge a monthly fee. For professional work, it’s a no-brainer—just a small productivity boost pays for itself almost immediately. But do you feel the same way?
• Is there enough interest out there? Are we looking at a niche tool that only a handful of people would find useful, or is there a real market for something like this?

I’d love to hear what you think. Would a specialized FeatureScript assistant be worth the cost to you or your company? Are we barking up the wrong tree, or does this seem like something that could fill a real need?

Thanks for any thoughts you can share !

S1mon

I'd love to see some YouTube demos before commenting too much.

That said, I would prefer that PTC/Onshape develop a first party solution to this problem. The problem isn't so much that we need an LLM powered assistant, it's that there are people who would like to build something like a feature that could be re-used, but is easier to do than fighting with queries and sketches in FeatureScript. Solving the FeatureScript usability issues with an LLM may be helpful, and I would certainly be willing to try it, but I'm not sure that's solving the right problem.

I feel like FeatureScript represents a huge, mostly untapped potential to change the way parametric mechanical CAD is done. Despite spending a fair amount of time going through tutorials and following the discussions on the Forum here, I find myself very frustrated by my progress or lack thereof. I haven't touched Grasshopper (parametric visual coding for Rhino) in a long time, but my memory of it was that it was so much easier to just get started and make something useful. I wish there was something that would perhaps live above FeatureScript which would be that simple to use, or put another way, I wish there were a way to to connect regular Onshape features into meta-features which could be re-used.

EvanReese

It's definitely interesting, and feels like an inevitable thing that will exist. I think I share Simon's feelings though. If it really worked it would be valuable. Even more so if it could get Onshape users from non-FeatureScript users to FeatureScript users. That initial learning curve is steep (or was for me anyway). I also use Grasshopper from time to time, and agree that some kind of node-based FS builder could be huge for enabling people who are currently intimidated by FeatureScript. The two would complement one another, not compete.

jelte_steur814

I think something like this is inevitable. It's just a matter of when…

I think many non-featurescript coding Onshape users are technical enough to create a featurescript without understanding the syntax if it could be coded with natural language. And LLM's are the intermediary layer to make this happen.

Agree with Simon and Evan that this will eventually need to be integrated into Onshape.

for the non-FS-Coding lot you're looking at problem urgency (Coelen scale) two or three. not an easy sell.

for professional coders; IF their productivity would indeed go up a lot, it would be an easy sell indeed. question is how many are out there. probably urgency 5.

I think a freemium model (so people can experience the benefit) with limited tokens, a few subscription tiers with more tokens each and the ability to buy tokens separately for irregular users would be a beautiful model (sorta like OnScale).

MichaelPascoe

Congrats! Video demonstration?

The standard rate for integrated AI is around 10 to 15 USD / month. This is the cost of git copilot for visual studio which is a must have for quick questions and repetitive work or code clean up.

Assuming it is as useful as git copilot, I would pay 15 to 30 USD / month for a tool like this. It would need to be an integrated app in the Onshape app side panel, I wouldn't want to have to go to gpt's website for every question. Not sure Onshape allows apps for feature studios though, so it might need to be a web extension that can read the featurescript on the current page then insert or replace code.