DX-CAD with Claude Desktop

DX-CAD has a door for agents: dxcad serve, an MCP server. Claude Desktop can drive it to make, change, measure and export parts. With the live window link, Claude works on the window you have open, so each part it makes appears in the view as it is made, and each step is one undo in the window. The full reference is DX-CAD for agents.

Connect Claude Desktop

Open DX-CAD with dxcad gui. On the start page, choose Connect Claude Desktop. It reads Claude Desktop's configuration and adds a DX-CAD server that drives the open window. If one is there already it says so, and if one points at another install it offers to replace it, keeping the old file as a backup. The same from a terminal:

dxcad serve --install

Restart Claude Desktop. DX-CAD's tools are then listed under the tools it offers. Keep the DX-CAD window open while you talk to Claude: the server works on whichever tab is in front, and while no window is open each call is refused, saying so.

Three prompts

"Make a 50 x 30 x 5 mm plate with a 4 mm hole 5 mm in from each corner." Claude makes the box with make_box and drills it with hole four times. The plate appears in the view. The window's model pane gains a line for each call, and Ctrl+Z undoes them one at a time.

"Chamfer every edge 0.5 mm and show me it from the top." Claude calls chamfer_all, then render_view with the top view. The picture comes back into the conversation, and a copy is saved where you can open it; the answer gives its whole path.

"Save it as plate.dxcprt and export a STEP beside it." Claude calls project_save and export. Each answer gives the whole path written, and the window's status bar says where the file went.

The part those three prompts make is the one this model builds. The suite builds it and checks that it is valid:

# desk_plate.py
plate = make_box(50, 30, 5)
for x in (5, 45):
    for y in (5, 25):
        plate = cut(plate, make_cylinder(2, 5, (x, y, 0)))
plate = chamfer_all(plate, 0.5)
part("plate", plate)

The plate the three prompts make

Claude reads each part back through the tools' answers: its volume, its size, its faces and its holes. Asking it to check a part against what you meant ("is each hole 5 mm from both edges?") is a good habit.