Opportunities › AI-assisted feature tree editing for CAD engineers › Proposed app
Trimtree
Review AI edits to your CAD feature tree before they touch your model
- Score
- 34
- confidence 59
- Evidence
- 7
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 2
- named in sources
- First version
- 45 d
- estimate
- Type
- Desktop app
- PWA: runs in the browser, installs on Mac and Windows
- Market since
- 2023
- Emerging market · AI estimate
ScreensConcept
Desktop app: Mechanical engineers and designers work at CAD workstations, carefully reviewing and accepting AI-proposed edits to complex feature trees with dense technical details. Sample screens on a computer, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
New task
Tree read: 148 features148
About this appAI proposal
Trimtree is a review console for AI edits to CAD feature trees. A small add-in or API link reads the tree from your CAD tool. You describe a chore, such as renaming features, merging duplicates or adding consistent fillets, and an AI agent proposes the edits as a readable list of changes.
Nothing is applied until you approve it. Each change shows what it touches and why, and you can accept, edit or reject it one by one. Approved changes are written back as a script you can read, and each batch can be undone. It is built for mechanical engineers who want help with tedious tasks, not a model generator that hides its steps.
You pick the AI model, so the tool does not depend on one vendor. Trimtree is a proposal: the material points to demand for in-CAD help with Fusion and Onshape, and this design tests whether a review-first workflow is enough.
- Tagline
- Let the AI propose. You decide what changes in your model.
- Voice
- PlainPreciseCareful
- Why this name
- Trimming a tree is the job: pruning clutter from a feature tree. Two plain syllables, easy to say and spell.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
Change list, not a black box
Every proposed edit appears as a line: the feature, the action and the reason. You see the whole plan before anything changes.
No member yet
Accept or reject per edit
Approve a batch, or step through edits one at a time. Change a name or a fillet radius before it is applied.
No member yet
Feature tree cleanup
Merge redundant features, rename them by a convention you set, and group related steps so the tree reads well.
No member yet
Consistent fillets
Select edge sets by rule, such as all outer edges of a pocket, and apply one radius across them.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#1F5C4DSpruce · primary#F4F1EADrafting paper · surface#1F2A26Graphite · text#E0762BMarker orange · accent, pending edits#3B6EA5Blueprint · data
Typography
Aa
Trimtree
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
Let the AI propose. You decide what changes in your model.
PricingAI proposal
The material gives no competitor prices. These tiers are a starting point to test, in line with the per-user subscription idea in the opportunity.
Free
Free
- One CAD tool linked
- Read-only tree view
- 5 AI tasks a month
- Bring your own model key
Engineer
$29 a month
- Unlimited reviewed tasks
- Fusion and Onshape
- Naming rules and presets
- Batch undo history
Team
$59 a month
- Per seat, 3 seats minimum
- Shared naming standards
- Approval by a second reviewer
- Audit log of all edits
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$190,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- Shared outputs. Engineers share a change report link with teammates or a reviewer. It shows the before and after tree, the edits and the approvals, so colleagues can check a cleanup without opening the tool.
- Do they become customers?
- Reviewers who open a link may be engineers who also face messy trees, but a single view brings no customer by itself. Test how many reviewers sign up and link their own CAD account.
- First customers
- Mechanical engineers on small hardware teams of 5 to 30 people who use Onshape and often inherit messy models from colleagues or contractors.
- Where to reach them
- Hacker News and CAD forums: Follow up with people in the original thread and Onshape forum users. Offer free early access in exchange for feedback.
- Onshape community and app store: Post demos of before-and-after tree cleanups and list the app for Onshape users.
- Direct outreach on LinkedIn: Message mechanical engineers at hardware startups with a short video of a 100-feature tree cleaned up.
- First milestone
- Ten Onshape engineers each run five real cleanups, and at least five of them pay for the Engineer plan within 60 days.
Why people already pay for this
- VerifiedHacker News post received 101 points and 96 comments
- Public claimMechanical engineers want AI help inside the CAD tool they already use, not a black box generator
- AI inferenceEngineers use the tool for specific repetitive CAD tasks
- Public claimRecent AI models show massive improvements in spatial reasoning for CAD tasks
- Public claim
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · CAD connectorsOnshape REST API client and a Fusion Python add-inThe app needs to read the tree and write approved script edits back into each tool.
- This app · AI model gatewayModel-agnostic LLM routing with user keysLets users pick the model and lets the team swap models as they improve.
RisksAI inference
- PlatformA PWA cannot run inside the CAD tool. It depends on Fusion and Onshape APIs and add-ins, which can change or limit write access. Autodesk has also shipped its own connector with Anthropic.
- TechnicalEdits to a feature tree can break later features on rebuild. The validator must catch this before approval, and it may fail on large or unusual models.
- AIThe model may propose wrong merges or names. Engineers will drop the tool if review costs more time than doing the chore by hand.
- DataCAD models are often confidential. Companies may refuse to send tree data to a cloud service or to third-party AI models.
- CommercialThe Hacker News evidence shows interest, not payment. It is unclear whether engineers or their employers will pay for cleanup chores.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.