design to fabrication

Developing a digital pipeline from BIM to robotic manufacturing

Project Overview

At Intelligent City, I contributed to the development and maintenance of the digital workflows that translated BIM models into manufacturing-ready data for robotic fabrication and assembly.

My work focused on building automation tools using C# hosted in Rhino/Grasshopper that bridged design information from BIM with downstream robotic manufacturing processes, helping create a reliable and repeatable design-to-production pipeline.

The Challenge

As projects progressed from design to manufacturing, information needed to flow accurately between BIM and robotic production systems.

The challenge was to convert BIM-derived 3D geometry into structured, robot-readable manufacturing code that could reliably drive automated milling and assembly processes, while optimizing machining strategies and cycle times to maximize production efficiency.

My Contribution

I developed and maintained several core tools within the digital fabrication pipeline, including:

MT Exporter

A C# Rhino Grasshopper tool that:

  • Reviewed and imported BIM-exported models into Rhino

  • Converted geometry into a computationally usable format

  • Attached manufacturing metadata required for downstream processing

  • Standardized project data for production

Robot Code Generation

Developed automation tools that:

  • Generated robotic milling code from enriched Rhino models

  • Converted design information into manufacturing instructions

  • Reduced manual programming effort for robotic fabrication

  • Generated geometries required for digital simulations

Assembly Code Generation

Maintained and improved automation tools responsible for generating assembly instructions used during production.

Worked closely with manufacturing teams to ensure generated outputs aligned with fabrication requirements.

Production Support

Beyond tool development, I also:

  • Managed the production code generation workflow

  • Generated manufacturing outputs for live production

  • Supported issue resolution during fabrication

  • Coordinated with BIM and manufacturing teams to maintain workflow reliability

Technologies

  • C#

  • Rhino

  • Grasshopper

  • GitHub

  • Airtable