My History in Grasshopper Development

[kiteboardshaper]

With the release of DKUI and the documentation of the DGRS stack for Rhino plugin development using Grasshopper, I thought it would be a good time to start documenting my nearly 10-year journey with Grasshopper development.

This is the first post in a retrospective series, sharing early commercial work, workflow experiments, and some insights from real-world parametric modeling projects.

Project Archive: Composite UAV Drone (2016–2017)

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Project Overview

Client: Purple Turtle
Timeline: Dec 2016 – Feb 2017
Tools Used:

• Rhino 5
• T-Splines 4.0
• Grasshopper 0.9

Deliverable: Mold-ready 3DM files
Grasshopper Components: 255

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Project Brief

The client provided 2D drawings of a balsa wood and fabric UAV. The task was to convert this into a fully 3D design suitable for carbon/epoxy composite construction.

I modeled the complete UAV form as a single T-spline object, then split it into sub-components using cutting geometry modeled in Rhino (surfaces and polysurfaces). All splitting and Boolean operations were controlled via a Grasshopper definition to allow live updates during design iteration.

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Workflow Summary

• T-spline base body modeled in Rhino
• Rhino surfaces used to define cut geometry
• All Booleans scripted in Grasshopper for parametric part separation
• Output: precise, fabrication-ready 3DM molds for composite mold production

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Why It Mattered

This was my first real project using Grasshopper commercially and it formed the basis of my workflow style going forward: using GH as a logic engine to automate real-world design and manufacturing processes.

I’ll be posting more from my archive over the next few weeks, including:

• Custom tooling for manufacturing
• Shapediver and the first steps into sharing my tools with others
• Plugin development using Grasshopper and the Rhino Script Compiler
• Lessons learned from automating real-world design systems

Happy to discuss any of the technical aspects — comments, feedback, or your own similar experiences are welcome!

Single T-Spline Body:

Trimming/Cutting Objects:

Grasshopper Script:

Complete design split into sub-components:

[kiteboardshaper]

KaroroCAD: A Grasshopper Moonshot for Parametric Kite Design

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share a project that started as a personal Grasshopper learning challenge and grew into something much more. This is the second post in a series documenting my long-term journey with Rhino and Grasshopper.

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Project Summary

Project: Moonshot GH Coding — KaroroCAD (v0)
Client: Internal R&D / Personal Learning
Timeline: April 2017 – Sept 2017 (initial development; still ongoing)
Tools Used: Rhino 6, Grasshopper 1.0
Deliverables:
• 2D DXF outputs suitable for inflatable kite production
• Parametric design engine (KaroroCAD)
• Grasshopper development experience (and a few headaches!)
GH Component Count: 2,595

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Background

In early 2017, coming off my first commercial Grasshopper project (a composite UAV mold), I decided to challenge myself by building a full parametric engine for designing inflatable kites.

I had:

• ~10 years of 3D modeling experience

• ~5 years working in Rhino

• ~17 years in the kite industry, including time with top-tier designers

That experience gave me a solid understanding of what production-ready kite design involves — and a motivation to see if Grasshopper could carry that entire workflow.

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Early Days: Crashing and Learning

My first two attempts failed. I coded myself into dead ends and had to start over from scratch. But by the third version, the logic started to hold together.

The turning point came when I realized:

“I just need to write down my Rhino workflow in GH — not invent something totally new.”

This mindset shift made the entire approach clearer. I was no longer abstracting geometry — I was documenting process.

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April–May 2017: Full Immersion

Once it started clicking, I went all in. Nights and weekends were consumed with GH development.

As the definition grew, the project transitioned from:

“Can this be done?”
to
“How can I prove this actually works?”

To do that, I needed a prototype. And that meant finding a production partner.

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Enter Dano See and Hyde Kites

I reached out to people I’d worked with in the kite industry.
Dano See and Hyde Kites (Philippines) understood what I was attempting — and they were open to building a kite based on my GH outputs.

This was a huge milestone. Now the pressure was on to deliver usable files.

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Aligning with Industry Standards

Dano provided a reference DXF export from a leading commercial kite CAD tool. That gave me a baseline for what factories expect — including annotations, layering, seam allowances, and clean geometry.

I designed a fairly middle-of-the-road 3-strut freeride kite and exported all panels from KaroroCAD via Grasshopper.

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First Build: Almost Perfect

Hyde reviewed the files and agreed to go ahead.

Initial production caught one issue: some leading edge panels near the wingtip had been unrolled out of sequence, causing geometric distortion when inflated.

I went back to the GH code, corrected the panel logic, and delivered a fixed set of files. The factory quickly turned around a corrected prototype.

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Seeing the Kite in 3D

Seeing the physical kite in the factory, inflated and matching the 3D model, was incredible.

This was real — the GH definition had gone from abstract parametric concept to tangible product.

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First Flight: Muizenberg, Sept 2017

The kite arrived in Cape Town.

By chance, we had solid SE wind the day it landed. I dropped everything and headed to Muizenberg.

It was nearly too windy for a 9m kite, but I was too excited not to try. I rigged the kite, used the safest bridle configuration, and launched.

It flew cleanly.

I grabbed my board, walked into the water, dove the kite — and I was up and riding.

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The Moment

Five months after starting this experiment, I was riding a kite designed 100% in my own GH definition — no external CAD, no manual drafting.

A surreal feeling. It worked.

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What’s Next?

Of course, this wasn’t the end — it was the end of the beginning.

Over the following months I kept refining the bridle model, geometry handling, and output logic. The second prototype followed soon after.

That’s a story for another post.

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Happy to answer any GH-specific questions or dive deeper into the modeling/logical side if people are interested.

—
David Kay

Code to Geometry

Being tidy is the secret to managing large GH programs

2595 components and growing…