🏭 AI CNC Cost Estimator

An intelligent manufacturing agent that combines geometric analysis with real-time market economics to generate instant CNC machining quotes.

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💡 The Problem

In the manufacturing world, quoting custom parts is a bottleneck. Engineers wait days for quotes, and machine shops waste hours manually calculating costs.

• Static estimators are inaccurate: They use hardcoded prices (e.g., "Aluminum is always $2/lb") which ignores market volatility.
• Manual quoting is slow: It limits the speed of rapid prototyping.

🚀 The Solution

This Actor is a Hybrid AI Agent that runs two parallel processes to generate a quote:

1. The Geometer (Physics Engine):

   • Uses CadQuery (OpenCASCADE kernel) to analyze the STEP file.
   • Calculates precise Volume, Surface Area, and Bounding Box.
   • Determines "Material Waste Ratio" (how much metal becomes scrap).

2. The Economist (Market Agent):

   • Uses Playwright to autonomously scrape real-time retail prices from major metal suppliers (e.g., OnlineMetals.com).
   • Features a Multi-Strategy Search (Schema Tags → CSS Selectors → Regex Text Search) to find pricing data even if website layouts change.

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🏗️ Architecture & Technology

This tool is built for the Apify Hackathon to demonstrate how scraping enhances traditional software logic.

• Language: Python 3.11
• CAD Analysis: CadQuery & NumPy
• Web Scraping: Playwright (Chromium)
• Resilience: Includes a fallback cached database if live scraping is blocked, ensuring 100% uptime.

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📥 Inputs

Field	Type	Description
STEP File URL	String	URL to a .step file. You can upload files to Apify Key-Value store to get a link.
Material	Select	Choose between Aluminum 6061, Stainless 304, or Steel 1018.
Quantity	Int	Number of parts. Used to amortize setup costs (NRE).

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📤 Output Example

The Actor produces a structured JSON report ready for integration into ERP systems or websites.

{
  "status": "success",
  "quote_id": "8f2a1b9e",
  "market_data": {
    "source": "Live Web Scrape",
    "material_price_index": 0.0125
  },
  "geometry_analysis": {
    "stock_dimensions_mm": { "x": 150.0, "y": 100.0, "z": 25.0 },
    "material_waste_percent": 45.2,
    "complexity_rating": "Medium"
  },
  "financials": {
    "estimated_unit_cost": 42.50,
    "estimated_total_cost": 2125.00,
    "breakdown": {
      "raw_material_cost": 15.20,
      "machining_cost": 27.30
    }
  }
}