nTop Product Contributions
This is a running list of my primary contributions to the Product at nTop. These represent features I have scoped and lead to implementation entirely unless otherwise stated. The focus of these is on building nTop models, specifically with new and improved implicit modeling tools. In reverse chronological order:
- (WIP stuff I can’t talk about yet)
- Literate Programming
- Lofting (implicit surfacing) for Aircraft Design
- 50+ new or updated foundational modeling blocks
- Evaluate Expression (block)
- Field Viewer Debugging
- Field Viewer Usability Updates
- Infinite Implicit hatching
- Curves and Profiles - Block and type system Overhaul
- Adaptive Meshing using nTop’s New Kernel (initial prototype; handed off for delivery)
- New Implicit Kernel (co-owned, delivered)
- Rib design blocks (Projection mapping)
Lofting for Aircraft Design
Despite being scrappy and creative, there were some shapes for aircraft design that were simply impossible to make in nTop. So, we took inspiration from legacy CAD and introduced parametric implicit surfacing into nTop. This system consists of the following:
- Swept Parametric Implicit Section Surfaces (high-level blocks)
- Conic and Cubic Bezier Fields (low-level blocks)
- Coordinate spaces (new concept)
Evaluate Expression
One of the most highly requested features in nTop (for years) has been a way to evaluate a complex expression. We released the Beta “Evaluate Expression” block, which ended up playing a critical role in aircraft design and analysis in 2025.
Field Viewer Updates
The “Field Viewer” is an essential tool with implicit modeling. It had been years since the usability of the tool was revisited at all, so we made a select few key usability improvements that dramatically changed the utility of the tool:
- New colormap for legibility
- Adaptive isolines for legibility
- Smart/automatic placement, sizing, and resizing
- Transparency
- Better side panel
Curves and Profiles - Initial Overhaul
Until now, curves and profiles existed, but were nearly unusable in nTop. We completely redesigned the Curve and Profile block and type system and all associated blocks. We moved from a set of disconnected types to a cohesive curve system with different sub-types sharing abstract traits. For example, Lines and Splines can be used in the same Profile.
We also introduced key new properties such as the Arc Length Field, enabling advanced remaps of implicits along curves.
Rib Design
I joined after the scoping stage and lead the design and implementation of a new conforming rib design solution.
Modeling ribs can be extremely time consuming, especially if you need to update or iterate on a design. In the last couple months we’ve released features to make rib design much faster, robust, and automatable for hashtag#computationaldesign workflows.
With our new blocks, we’ve added ways to project a ribbing pattern to the surface of any implicit body. The pattern can then be used to create solid, conforming ribs with field-driven parameters like height, thickness, blend radius, draft angle, and direction. Additionally, our latest block, “Relax Graph”, performs a relaxation to even out the distribution of a ribbing pattern (watch it happen live in the gif below).
In this example, I’ve created a simple housing completely in nTop and projected a ribbing pattern to the surface using cylindrical mapping. Of course, this implicit body could also come from imported CAD or a combination of the two. When I change a parameter of the housing, the rest of the workflow automatically regenerates the ribs. I can also change the ribbing pattern, spacing, and all the other parameters.
Shout outs to the software engineers
These obviously wouldn’t be possible without brilliant team(s) of software engineers. Here are some shout outs with links where I have them.
- Suraj Musavathy
- Ranjeeth Mahankali
- Kelsey Kurzeja
- Peter Beben
- Arnav Joshi
- Mikel Negugogor
- Johann Korndoerfer
- Benjamin Keinart
- Matteo Colaianni
- Marcel Barkholz
Also, our fantastic former product designer Rebecca Resnic.