# Text to CAD for SOLIDWORKS: prompts that build real, editable geometry > Text to CAD that produces native SOLIDWORKS features, not a frozen mesh. Describe the part or the change in plain English and CADABRA builds it in your feature tree, on your standards. URL: https://cadabrai.com/text-to-cad/ Updated: 2026-08-15 --- # Text to CAD that lands in your feature tree. Describe the part or the change in plain English. CADABRA resolves it into native SOLIDWORKS features you can still edit, roll back, and dimension. [Video: A written prompt building geometry on a SOLIDWORKS part](https://cadabrai.com/assets/demo-2.mp4) ## What text to CAD means, and where most tools stop. Text to CAD is turning a written description into real geometry. Most tools that claim it return a mesh or a one-off solid: something you can look at and print, but not something you can dimension, revise, or release. CADABRA runs text to CAD **inside SOLIDWORKS**. A prompt resolves into native feature operations, extrudes, cuts, fillets, patterns, Hole Wizard, so the result arrives in your feature tree with its sketches and dimensions intact. ## What a working prompt looks like. Prompts carry engineering intent and numbers. **Make the wall 3 mm thicker** Finds the driving sketch or the shell feature, changes the dimension, and rebuilds the part along with anything downstream that depends on it. **Fillet all sharp edges on this face at 2 mm** Selects the qualifying edges on the referenced face and adds a single fillet feature, rather than one feature per edge. **Add a 6 mm counterbored hole pattern on a 40 mm bolt circle** Creates the Hole Wizard feature with the counterbore standard you configured, then the circular pattern that places it. **Pattern this rib eight times around the axis** Reads the selected feature and the axis, adds the circular pattern, and rebuilds. **Change the material to 6061-T6 and report the new mass** Applies the material from your library and returns the updated mass properties. **Apply this same edit to every part in the family** Repeats the resolved operation across the configurations or the parts you pointed at. ## Why the output stays editable. [Video: The SOLIDWORKS feature tree updating after a prompt](https://cadabrai.com/assets/demo-2.mp4) ### Native features, not imported bodies. Every operation CADABRA performs is one SOLIDWORKS would perform. There is no translation step and no foreign body, so the feature tree stays yours and the file stays a normal SLDPRT. - Sketches, dimensions, and relations are all present and editable. - Roll back, suppress, and reorder work exactly as they always did. - Nothing to re-import when the design changes. ### It reads the model before it acts. A prompt like "thicken the wall" only means something against a specific part. CADABRA resolves the reference against the open document, its geometry, and its history, then performs the operation that matches. - Reads the active document, its feature tree, and the current selection. - Shows what it changed so you can verify or revert it. ### On your standards, not generic defaults. Hole standards, material libraries and naming conventions come from your own configuration and from the SOLIDWORKS seat you already run, so generated geometry matches what your team ships. - Company hole and fastener standards applied automatically. - Fasteners inserted from your SOLIDWORKS Toolbox rather than modelled. - Materials assigned from your own material library. ## Generic text-to-CAD versus text to CAD in SOLIDWORKS. | | Generic text-to-3D tools | CADABRA | | --- | --- | --- | | Output | Mesh or a single frozen solid | Native SOLIDWORKS features in your tree | | Editable afterwards | Re-prompt and regenerate from scratch | Edit a dimension, roll back, reorder | | Works on your existing parts | No, it generates new objects | Yes, it edits the open document | | Company standards | Not applied | Hole, material, and naming standards applied | | Drawings and BOMs | Not produced | Produced from the same model | | Where it runs | A separate web app | Inside SOLIDWORKS, on your license | ## How to run text to CAD in SOLIDWORKS. 1. 01 Install the add-in Close SOLIDWORKS, run the installer, and enable CADABRA. No migration, no file conversion, and your existing license is the only one you need. 2. 02 Point it at a document Open the part or assembly. CADABRA reads the feature tree and your configured standards before it does anything. 3. 03 Write the instruction Say what you want in engineering language, with the numbers that matter. An instruction that names an operation, a reference and a number resolves; one missing any of the three comes back as a question. 4. 04 Check the tree The new features are in the tree. Check them, then keep modelling. ## Text to CAD, answered. ### What is text to CAD? Text to CAD is turning a written description into real CAD geometry. A generic text-to-CAD tool produces a standalone mesh or a one-off solid. CADABRA does text to CAD inside SOLIDWORKS: the prompt resolves to native feature operations on the feature tree, so the result is a parametric, editable SOLIDWORKS body. ### Is text-to-CAD output editable, or is it a dumb mesh? With CADABRA it is editable. Prompts are resolved into native SOLIDWORKS features such as extrudes, cuts, fillets, patterns, and Hole Wizard operations, so every result lands in the feature tree with its sketches and dimensions intact. You can roll back, edit a dimension, or change design intent exactly as you would on geometry you modelled by hand. ### What kind of prompts actually work? Concrete, dimensioned, engineering-language prompts work best. Examples: “make the wall 3 mm thicker”, “fillet all sharp edges on this face at 2 mm”, “add a 6 mm counterbored hole pattern on a 40 mm bolt circle”, “pattern this rib eight times around the axis”, “change the material to 6061-T6 and update the mass properties”. Vague prompts such as “make it better” do not resolve to a single operation. ### Why not just write a macro or an API script? Macros work for a fixed, repeated sequence: they break when the feature tree changes, they need a developer to maintain, and each new variation is a new script. CADABRA resolves intent against the actual model at run time, so one prompt covers cases that would otherwise need a separate macro each. ### Do I need my own SOLIDWORKS license? Yes. CADABRA is an add-in, not a CAD system. You keep your existing SOLIDWORKS license, files, libraries, and PDM, and CADABRA works inside them. ### How accurate is it, and who checks the work? You do. CADABRA performs real operations on your model and shows exactly what it changed, so every edit is reviewable in the feature tree and revertible. ## Try it on your own part. Start free, or bring a SOLIDWORKS file to a 20-minute call and watch it edited by prompt. ## Keep reading - [Text to CAD vs Text to 3DMesh or parametric.](https://cadabrai.com/text-to-cad-vs-text-to-3d/) - [Natural Language CADThe pipeline from a sentence to a rebuilt model, and how to write for it.](https://cadabrai.com/natural-language-cad/) - [CAD to DrawingViews, dimensions, callouts, BOM, and your title block, generated in one pass.](https://cadabrai.com/cad-to-drawing/) - [AI CAD GeneratorImage, mesh, or native features. Only one of them is a part.](https://cadabrai.com/ai-cad-generator/)