What Is Design Guidance in xDesign and How Can It Rethink Your CAD Designs?
Rethinking Design with AI
Using Design Guidance in xDesign to Explore Smarter Part Concepts
What if your CAD tool could suggest a better version of your design? Not by giving
you a finished product, but by showing what your part could look like under ideal
conditions. That’s what Design Guidance in xDesign is built to do.
This tool offers a conceptual design suggestion based on your constraints — how the part is fixed, where it's loaded, and which regions can or cannot change. The result is a lightweight, optimized shape that isn't meant for direct manufacturing but instead acts as inspiration. You then use that inspiration to rebuild the real part geometry. Let’s walk through how the tool works and how we used it on a piston connecting rod to reimagine its structure.
Step 1: Fix the Part in Place
Before optimization, we need to define where the part is fixed — where it won’t move in real use. Using the Clamp tool, we selected the bottom holes of the connecting rod.
These are the faces where nuts and bolts hold the rod down, so they stay locked. Fixing these regions helps the software understand the real-world constraints of the part.
Step 3: Redesign Zones and Targets
With the constraints set, we tell the tool which parts it can work on. In the Redesign tab, we selected the less-critical regions of the rod and gave the AI a target mass, 70% of the original part.
We also adjusted the voxel granularity, which controls the smoothness and detail level of the result. While the final output isn’t ready to manufacture, it gives us a clear picture of how material could be distributed efficiently.
Step 4: Preserve What Matters
Some features must remain untouched — mounting faces, holes, etc. Using the Preserve option, we locked those faces and also defined the build volume i.e., the design’s working envelope. This helps ensure that the AIgenerated concept won’t interfere with the part’s critical functions.
Step 5: Use Symmetry to Simplify
If the part has symmetrical behaviour, we can guide the AI to apply symmetry. Our connecting rod has two symmetry planes, which we enabled to help generate a clean, balanced shape.
Step 6: Generate the Concept Shape
With everything defined, we hit Generate. The software ran its calculations and gave us a shape that looked completely different — organic, optimized, and efficient. We reviewed it using both Granular View and Mesh View. Though not ready for printing or machining, it gave us valuable insight into how we could rethink our geometry.
Creating Profiles from the Suggestion
This is where your actual modelling begins. The concept shape acts as a reference, and you extract sketch profiles from it to rebuild a real, manufacturable part. The Create Profiles tool helps you slice the suggested shape into 2D sections you can use.
Sketch Entity Type: Choose whether the profiles should be made of circles, rectangles, polylines, or slots. This affects how closely the sketches match the concept shape.
- Polyline: Best for accuracy. It uses small, connected lines to closely trace the AI-generated geometry.
- Number of Profiles: Decide how many cross-sections to extract. More profiles give you finer control when recreating the 3D geometry.
- Covering Volume Settings: Define the zone where profiles will be generated. You can control this by size (bounding box dimensions), by angle (sweep coverage) and by position.
- Reset Orientation Options: You can reset the covering volume to align with either
the global coordinate system or the orientation of the design volume. This helps if
your shape is angled or offset.
These sketches don’t just copy the shape, they guide you. You can now use them to build features that turn a concept into something real and manufacturable.
The Takeaway - Idea to Implementation
Design Guidance is not about giving you a finished part. It’s about offering a smart starting point, a suggestion that makes you think differently. It shows how a part could look if it were shaped purely by performance, and then lets you decide how to bring it to life.
With just a few clicks, we:
- Explored new shapes for an existing part
- Learned how material could be distributed more efficiently
- Extracted profiles to rebuild a smarter 3D model
It’s fast, insightful, and opens the door to creative design thinking. Whether you’re redesigning a part or experimenting with new forms, Design Guidance gives you the vision, and the tools to turn it into something real.
Contact Us: Have questions or need assistance? Feel free to reach out!
Phone: +91 94454 24704
Email: mktg@egs.co.in
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