A bit of a contrarian perspective. A while back it was suggested that I consider using Grok for a design project so I did some experimenting to see what it would offer. After a bunch of obviously nonsensical results I began to turn my line of questioning toward perspectives and opinions on AI and CAD. At least from Grok's perspective, none of the major LLMs work with a geometry kernel so image generation is neither to scale nor dimensionable and thus not manufacturable; the results really suggest to me that the AIs do not understand the objects being imaged. Research is obviously ongoing and many tools are seeking to bring the two worlds closer together, so who knows what lurks around the next bend?

--Larry

As far as making models goes, I agree. My interest is in quick, easy renderings, which seem to come out very well, depending on the info that we plug in. The lack of response to my questions implies that there has been very little attention given to this option; perhaps because the people on this forum have spent a lot of time and money learning to use a rendering program and don't feel that they need another option. I guess that I'm the odd man out.

Anyone tried these or are most just happy with bitmap to render?

Veras by EvolveLAB,
https://www.evolvelab.io/veras

Fenestra AI,
https://www.fenestra.app/

Rendair AI
https://rendair.ai/

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Apparently these are the top AI rendering engines that process geometry directly from professional 3D files like .3dm and .obj to generate high-resolution, photorealistic renders.

Unlike general AI image generators that rely solely on flat 2D screenshots and lose your camera depth, these engines keep your exact geometry intact. Veras operates as a native, live viewport plugin for Rhinoceros 3D (.3dm) and Revit, reading your software's active camera angles and structural data to apply text-prompted materials and lighting seamlessly.

Fenestra AI offers a cloud-based pipeline tailored specifically for Rhino users, allowing you to upload native .3dm files directly to a web interface and generate high-quality concepts in under 30 seconds without hardware strain. For universal file compatibility, Rendair AI provides a dedicated "3D Base to Render" workflow where you can upload .obj models directly into an online canvas, allowing you to rotate, scale, and align the physical asset before rendering to guarantee perfectly accurate perspective, shadow mapping, and lighting.
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Many thanks for this special background info !
Best Regards !

so many tools out there:



this one sounds good for colouring the .obj




https://www.tripo3d.ai/features/image-to-3d-model