We are a small English joinery workshop making decorative timber bargeboards for period houses. Every gable is a different size, so every board is currently drawn by hand. We want a parametric tool that takes a handful of dimensions and generates the cutting geometry and a setting-out schedule.
The core behaviour: a board has a fixed detail at the apex, a fixed detail at the foot, and a repeating decorative motif filling the length between them. The motif count is not fixed. As the board gets longer the gaps between motifs widen, and once they exceed a maximum the tool adds one more motif and the spacing tightens again. Think staircase spindle spacing. Motif size is driven by a second dimension across the board, not by the length.
Outputs we need: SVG in real-world millimetres with RGB colour (our cutting equipment reads SVG only), DXF alongside it, separate template profiles at true size, and a CSV setting-out schedule. There are also manufacturing constraints the geometry must respect, minimum internal radius and minimum web thickness among them.
We have a written brief, eighteen sections, that specifies all of this properly. Happy to send it to anyone interested. We have a range of sixteen designs, so we care a great deal about this being a reusable framework rather than a one-off.
We would prefer a Grasshopper Player or Rhino command front end. We are also happy to see it quoted as a simple web page instead, and would like both prices if you can give them. We are not interested in a ShapeDiver hosted solution.
Before awarding the work we will commission a short PAID trial task from two or three people: build the spacing logic only, and supply one sample SVG that opens at true size. We pay for that whether or not we go on to appoint you.
Reply here or message me through the forum and I will send the brief over. We can also be reached at info@greene-thorne.co.uk.
Rory Thorne, Greene Thorne, greene-thorne.co.uk
