BEND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tech Soft 3D, the world leader in providing engineering software development toolkits (SDKs), announces the official release of HOOPS AI, the first framework purpose-built to unlock AI and machine learning for CAD data, following a successful beta program involving more than 30 companies.
HOOPS AI has reached general availability, ready to support software vendors and engineers working in PLM, MES, CAM, manufacturing, and any other team with complex 3D datasets looking to integrate 3D engineering data into modern machine learning pipelines.
Despite the transformative effect of machine learning technology on many industries, its ability to leverage CAD data has remained elusive. Existing tools rely on fragile workflows and improvised scripts, making them prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for most organizations. HOOPS AI provides the first framework to build machine learning models specifically with CAD data.
“The official launch of HOOPS AI marks an important step in Tech Soft 3D leading the effort to bring AI to engineering data,” said Gavin Bridgeman, CTO, Tech Soft 3D. “For the first time, developers have a framework designed specifically to make CAD data usable in modern machine learning workflows.”
First introduced in late 2025 as a technology preview, HOOPS AI supports data preparation and model experimentation, allowing teams to run hundreds or thousands of models simultaneously. This rapid iteration allows for a smaller team to cut development cycles from months to weeks. The resultant capabilities teams can create include automated part classification and metadata enrichment, manufacturing feature detection, similarity search and duplicate detection, design reuse and optimization, and more.
Tech Soft 3D’s data translators have processed more CAD data than any other toolkit, with decades of providing unrivaled CAD data access, performance, and accuracy to hundreds of partners, including Ansys, Siemens, Hexagon, NVIDIA’s Omniverse, Unreal Engine, and Unity 3D.
With this technology, Tech Soft 3D seeks to unleash the powerful combination of AI and CAD data for both its existing partners and the engineering industry.
New Features for the Full Release of HOOPS AI
New since its limited release, HOOPS AI now includes official support for both Windows and Linux, the latter being particularly important for AI and data-processing pipelines, enabling developers to integrate HOOPS AI more easily into modern ML infrastructure.
This release also introduces CAD embeddings, a technology that captures the semantic meaning and relationships within complex CAD data, allowing machine learning modules to identify similar parts and understand the relevant design context. The tool automatically defines those relationships without explicit human input, based on patterns identified through its analysis.
Improved HOOPS AI Empowers Machine Learning for 2026 and Beyond
HOOPS AI supports every aspect of the machine learning lifecycle, from CAD access, dataset preparation, optimized encoding, visualization, scaling tools, and much more. Data scientists and developers can leverage this toolkit to build automated, intelligent experimentation systems that run hundreds or thousands of model variations, track results, and improve continuously. The result is a few engineers doing the work of a much larger team in weeks, rather than months.
HOOPS AI enables developers to apply machine learning to CAD data for tasks like part classification, manufacturing feature detection, and similarity search across large design libraries.
With its official launch, HOOPS AI will continue to improve. Python Access will expose more CAD data, specifically targeting product manufacturing information (PMI). The long-term vision of the product aims to capture the expert engineering knowledge in CAD models and unlock it across teams. While current examples of HOOPS AI in action are trained on public datasets, the goal is for organizations to train using their own private data, tailoring the machine learning program more closely to their needs.
To learn more about HOOPS AI, explore the HOOPS AI product page or contact an expert at Tech Soft 3D.
About Tech Soft 3D
Tech Soft 3D is the leading provider of engineering software development toolkits and industrial applications for CAD & CAE data conversion, visualization, and simulation. Established in 1996 and headquartered in Bend, Oregon, Tech Soft 3D has additional offices in the USA, France, England, Japan, Germany, and Norway. Tech Soft 3D is backed by investment firm Battery Ventures. For more information, please visit www.techsoft3d.com.
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