Groundwork

Status: Private. Built for one tender, and kept for the next.
Platform: A single file that opens in any browser and works offline. Nothing is uploaded anywhere.
For: Planning a site without CAD training
Exports: Plan drawings with a title block and legend, and a 3D walkthrough anyone can open
Built in: Singapore

Why I built it

Groundwork started with a tender. The proposal was for a community farm in a public park, and it needed a proper site plan: what goes where, how big it is, and what it would be like to walk through. The tools for that are made for architects, and learning AutoCAD before the deadline wasn’t going to happen.

So I built a planner for people like me. You bring the survey plan, and it handles the scale, the measuring and the drawing. Then it builds the whole site in 3D, so the people deciding can walk through it before anything is built.

The problem

Site plans are made for architects

AutoCAD takes years to learn
The proper tools assume training you don’t have, and a deadline doesn’t wait while you learn.
Slides aren’t to scale
Boxes dragged around a slide look fine until someone asks whether the hall fits beside the pond.
A survey plan is only a picture
It’s a PDF with measurements on it, and nothing you draw on top knows how big anything is.
Most people can’t read a plan
A committee can’t picture a site from a drawing. They need to see it at eye level, in the evening light.

Who it’s for

For people who plan spaces without a CAD licence

Tender and proposal teams
Put a site plan, the numbers and a walkthrough in front of the panel.
Community gardens and farms
Lay out plots, paths and shelters to scale before anything is dug.
Landscape and event planners
Try the stage here or there, and see where the shade falls.
Clients and committees
Open the walkthrough with a double-click on any device, and take the guided tour.

What it does

Inside Groundwork

From survey plan to 3D

Upload the survey plan, set the scale by clicking two points a known distance apart, and place things from a library of over 90 items. Everything is true to scale, and the 3D view is built from the plan.

The whole site in 3D

Buildings rise to their real heights and trees to their real canopies. Turn on materials and people, and the massing becomes an artist’s impression.

Morning to evening

Four lighting presets, with the sun placed by the plan’s north arrow. At dusk the lampposts, festoon lights and cafe interiors come on.

Walk it at eye level

Walk mode puts you at 1.65 metres: keys on a laptop, a joystick on a phone.

Groundwork: Numbers for the proposal — Numbers for the proposal
Plot counts, planted and paved areas, path lengths and seating, ready to copy into the tender.

How it was made

Two hands

Groundwork is built with agentic assistance, and the agents wrote most of the geometry. What the tool had to do for a tender panel, and what a beginner should never have to think about, came from me.

The agents’ hand

Turning the flat plan into a 3D scene, from roof pitches to the sag in a string of festoon lights.
Drawing every texture in code, from gravel and decking to the ripples and koi in the ponds.
Packing the whole walkthrough into one file that opens on any device, with no internet needed.

My hand

Reading the tender and choosing which of its rules the tool should enforce, like the height cap and the no-build buffers.
Knowing what the panel needed to see: the numbers, the evening view and a tour they could take on their own.
Deciding what a beginner should never have to think about, and leaving out anything that felt like CAD.
Sixteen rounds of refinements, from glass cafe windows to koi in the ponds, each a call on whether the scene felt right yet.

Where it’s heading

Where it could go

For now Groundwork does what the tender needed. Next on the list are a shadow study through the day, sloping ground, and cost estimates worked out from the plan.

Private for now

Should this exist for more people?

Groundwork was built for one tender and has stayed private. If a beginner’s site planner would help you, I’d like to know.

Would you use it?
Tell me what you’d plan with it. If enough people ask, it’s the kind of thing I’d open up.
Tell me you’d use it
Want something built for you?
I build private tools like this for a family, a team or a single project. Yours would be made around how you work.
See what I make

Why I built it

Site plans are made for architects

AutoCAD takes years to learn

Slides aren’t to scale

A survey plan is only a picture

Most people can’t read a plan

For people who plan spaces without a CAD licence

Tender and proposal teams

Community gardens and farms

Landscape and event planners

Clients and committees