Design review has always happened in two places at once. The model lives in 3D, where the problem actually is, and the conversation about it lives somewhere else, in an email with a screenshot, a comment on a flattened image, a note that says "the boss on the left side" and trusts everyone to find it. The reviewer sees the part in space, but the moment they want to point at something, they lose the one thing that made the view clear.
3D markups close that gap. You draw directly on the part or assembly, right where the issue is, and the person who reads it sees exactly what you saw. And because the Design Agent can read those markups, pointing at the problem and asking for the fix stop being two separate steps.
Review in 3D, Where the Problem Is
On any part or assembly, whether you are looking at a design file or comparing two revisions, you click the pencil and mark up the model directly, with pen, shapes, arrows, and text. Each markup is saved as a snapshot of that exact view, the camera angle you chose and the state you set up, including any parts you hid, isolated, or made see-through to get the detail in frame.
Those snapshots live in the Comments drawer, and opening one flies the camera back to the saved view and lays your markup over the live 3D model. The reviewer does not get a picture of the part, they get the part itself, framed exactly as you framed it, with the markup in place. The text tool works the same way on both 3D snapshots and 2D drawings, with a choice of fonts, colors, and sizes, so a note sits right where it belongs instead of in a separate thread.
Because every markup is a snapshot of a real view, the review happens in context. Team members comment on a snapshot the same way they comment on a 2D drawing markup, a link opens it directly, and the discussion stays attached to the exact geometry and the exact angle it is about. Nobody is reconstructing what the reviewer meant, because the view that made the point is right there.
Then the Agent Acts on It
Here is where a markup stops being a note and becomes an instruction. The Design Agent can read a 3D markup, the drawing on the model and the view it was made in, and carry out the change it describes. You circle the feature, write what needs to happen, and the agent makes the edit in the CAD, the same way it handles every other task, planned and validated against your standards.
That turns review into a shorter loop. The engineer points at the problem in 3D, and the fix comes back as validated work to approve, rather than a written request that waits in a queue for someone to open the file and do it by hand. The markup and the change are the same motion.
The Engineer Approves Every Gate
Reading a markup does not mean acting without oversight. The agent proposes the change the markup describes and shows what it did, and the engineer approves it before anything is committed, with the result landing in your PDM as the single source of truth. The markup starts the work and the engineer still finishes it, which is exactly how review is supposed to run.
Why It Matters
Most of the time lost in design review is not the deciding, it is the translating. A reviewer sees the problem in 3D, flattens it into words and a screenshot, and someone on the other end rebuilds the context before they can act. Every step in that chain is a chance to lose the angle, the hidden part, the exact feature that mattered.
Marking up the live model keeps the context intact from the person who spots the issue to the person, or the agent, who fixes it. The view that made the point is the view that gets acted on, and the loop from seeing a problem to approving its fix gets a great deal shorter.
That is what it means to review in three dimensions.
Want to see 3D markups and the Design Agent work on your own models? Book a demo with one of our AI consultants.
