Meet the team

One developer, one obsession: better backyard design tools.

Groundwork is a team of one for now — here's who's behind it, why it exists, and the work that got it here.

JB

Justin Birdsall

Founder & Engineer

I'm Justin, and I built PoolCad alone — not assembled-from-frameworks alone, actually alone.

The renderer is hand-written OpenGL. The modeling core runs on OpenCASCADE: true solids and real volumes, not meshes pretending. There's a finite-element solver in there so a shell design means something to the engineer who has to sign off on it. The terrain comes off a drone scan of the actual yard. When Groundwork shows you a pool, it's giving you the geometry, the quantities, and the structure — not just a pretty picture.

Most pool software is sales software: it renders the dream, then hands the hard part to someone else. I wanted the dream and the hard part in the same file. [Your origin here: how you got into pools and design software — the moment existing tools weren't good enough.]

People ask how one person builds a CAD engine. The same way you earn a black belt or train as a competitive diver: show up every day, respect the fundamentals, and don't skip the boring parts. I've worked since I was a kid — discipline is the only talent I trust.

[Optional: a line about school or what you're studying, if you want it here.] Groundwork is that discipline pointed at one problem — giving designers and builders a tool that's fast, honest, and actually buildable, and that they own.

The work

PoolCad Desktop Engine

C++OpenGLReal-time 3D

A native Mac + Windows design studio: draw in 2D plan view and the photoreal 3D scene builds itself live — coping, decking, water, and terrain included.

Engineering-grade Geometry

OpenCASCADEFEMNetgen

CAD-kernel solids, tetrahedral meshing, and finite-element analysis under the hood — so a pretty picture is also a buildable, permit-ready plan.

Real-time Environments

ShadersMaterialXProcedural

Procedural grass, terrain, water caustics and reflections rendered live — the backyard looks like a place, not a diagram.

This Website

Next.jsTypeScriptthree.js

The public face of Groundwork — and eventually the account portal and licensing backbone for the whole suite.

Tools of the trade

C++OpenGLOpenCASCADE (OCCT)FEM / NetgenTypeScriptNext.js / Reactthree.jsCMake

Want to talk pools, rendering, or CAD kernels?

I'm always glad to talk with designers, builders, and fellow graphics and CAD nerds — about pools, rendering, kernels, or where this is headed.

Say hello