Brad Rothenberg: The Astra Moment, SDFs, Topology Optimization, the Future of Engineering and More

Brad Rothenberg, founder of nTop, argues that engineering recently had its breakthrough moment -- that LLMs that can reason in 3D.We discuss SDFs (signed distance fields) and implicit modeling -- why they may be a better geometric representation for AI than traditional BREPS and debate whether LLMs truly reason or emulate reasoning.We also discuss the future of the CAD incumbents, topology optimization's limits, nTop's pivots, and organizations.