Branch 3D’s cover photo
Branch 3D

Branch 3D

Software Development

Vancouver, British Columbia 2,487 followers

Revolutionizing structural analysis, design, detailing, and manufacturing for mass timber and beyond

About us

Branch is a next-generation software platform for building structure design which cuts across traditional boundaries between design and manufacturing in AEC. Branch seamlessly integrates real-time structural analysis and design, 3D modeling/detailing, and fabrication into a single, integrated design environment. With Branch, all stakeholders—from owners and architects to engineers and CAM experts—can collaborate in a unified design space. This not only facilitates a smoother workflow but also enables real-time cost and carbon feedback on design changes, dramatically speeding up decision-making and enhancing accuracy. Users can explore high-level design concepts, like building massing, and instantly understand detailed impacts, including shop drawings, bills of materials, and CNC files. Branch is highly interactive and hackable, allowing designers to explore options without limitations. We believe that integrating data from all aspects of the process allows for faster exploration and holistic, elegant designs. With a focus on the rapidly growing mass timber sector, Branch streamlines the entire design-to-manufacturing process. It promotes efficient, sustainable construction, reducing costs and accelerating time-to-market.

Industry
Software Development
Company size
11-50 employees
Headquarters
Vancouver, British Columbia
Type
Privately Held
Founded
2020
Specialties
Parametric Design, Structural Analysis, 3D Design, Detailing, Automated Drafting, DfMA, Fabrication Modeling, and Software Development

Locations

Employees at Branch 3D

Updates

  • Branch 3D reposted this

    Structural Engineer Mark Skepasts from StructureCraft will be joining us at the Shape to Fabrication 2025 Conference with his presentation 'Branching Innovation: Timber Design and Construction with Computational Processes'. We'll meet the Branch software, learn about the delivered projects which inspired Branch’s foundation, and discover how building on these detailing successes Branch continues to extend into real-time structural analysis. 🔗 Learn more about Mark's presentation and the others being delivered over the 2-day Conference https://lnkd.in/ev_U9PMQ Shape to Fabrication 2025 Conference / 16-17th April 2025 / London #stf2025 #aec #structuralengineering #computationaldesign #timberdesign #structuralanalysis

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  • Hear how adventurous structural engineers and software developers at Branch 3D and StructureCraft are streamlining workflows throughout the design process with parametric tools. At Shape to Fabrication's 2025 London Conference on April 16-17, Mark Skepasts will present on Branch, integrating design, manufacturing, and assembly with a focus on efficiency and sustainability. These comprehensive workflows came together for the currently in-design Makers KUbe at the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design, including an all-wood mockup fully detailed with Branch. Our discussion begins with the Tianfu Agricultural Exposition and Taiyuan Botanical Garden Domes, which inspired Branch’s foundation. These projects challenged our team to explore computational solutions that optimized deliverables from schematic analysis to detailing and fabrication. Branch has since evolved from these explorations, applying advanced modeling and detailing solutions across many projects. At T3 Fat Village (Fort Lauderdale, USA), Branch enabled automated CNC workflows and shop drawings, while at Upper Macungie Township’s Community Recreation Center (Pennsylvania, USA), 3D modeling streamlined steel and timber shop drawings for a ~85m hybrid truss. This strong tie to ongoing projects is essential to Branch’s continuous development, making sure that the software addresses real project needs. Building on these detailing successes, Branch continues to extend into real-time structural analysis, delivering cost and carbon insights at concept stage for towers such as the 13-story Bridge District Parcel 5 Tower (Washington, D.C.). Meanwhile, geometry optimization and form-finding for projects like Maker’s KUbe (University of Kansas, USA) help to shape the future analysis capabilities as the team re-imagines what structural analysis can be in an integrated platform with instant feedback. #Presentation #StructuralEngineering #ParametricDesign #ParametricArchitecture #Branch3D #SoftwareDevelopment

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  • Showcasing the latest in structural design and manufacturing technology with two live demo screens, Branch's display at the 2024 Mass Timber Conference visualized realtime carbon, volume, and structural analysis data to attendees. We used the University of Kansas Makers KUbe as a prototype, in addition to a theoretical mass timber tower - exemplifying Branch's adaptability across project types. We're excited to be returning again this year in Portland at StructureCraft's Booth 544. Come by to learn how Branch can integrate into your design workflow - all the way from concept design to CNC files. We'll be using the 15-story Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver as a prototype, featuring the latest in seismic design research & development. Stay tuned for more. International Mass Timber Conference #Software #StructuralAnalysis #Branch3D #MassTimber #Conference #Portland #StructuralEngineering #SoftwareDevelopment #Grasshopper #Rhinoceros3d

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  • How do we integrate real-time structural analysis and design, 3D modeling/detailing, and fabrication into a single, integrated design environment? If you're curious, be sure to attend Lucas Epp's presentation at Mass Timber Plus / Greenbuild in Philadelphia on November 14 at 9am! He will join John Klein of Generate and Amir Shahrokhi of ASPECT Structural Engineers to address "Toward the Democratization of Mass Timber". Learn more and register here: https://lnkd.in/g7NxTuPT Branch is a next-generation software platform for building structure design which cuts across traditional boundaries between design and manufacturing in AEC. With Branch, all stakeholders—from owners and architects to engineers and CAM experts—can collaborate in a unified design space. This not only facilitates a smoother workflow but also enables real-time cost and carbon feedback on design changes, dramatically speeding up decision-making and enhancing accuracy. Pictured: Washington County Service Center, fully designed with Branch, 2023 #software #aec #conference #computationaldesign #generativedesign

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  • Branch 3D reposted this

    The longest clear-span timber gridshell of its type in the world. The largest of the Taiyuan Botanical Garden Domes is a non-triangulated gridshell, resulting in our choice to use a light diagrid layer of nearly invisible, but carefully detailed cables and adjustable nodes to mitigate multi-modal snap-through buckling by stabilizing/organizing the buckling modes. A major challenge lay in how to tension the cables, given that they had to connect numerous nodes in a two way pattern. The problem was neatly solved by devising for each node a special casting with separate pieces joined with an adjusting bolt which could essentially “pull” tension into the cable net, by pulling the cables closer to the gridshell above, thereby lengthening the entire cable net. This project used an early iteration of Branch 3D to allow the thousands of complex part and piece drawings to be created rapidly. Delugan Meissl Associated Architects Photos: Light Chaser

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  • Branch 3D reposted this

    All-wood nodes in the Makers' KUbe - a showcase of timber tectonics and traditional joinery. For the University of Kansas' new School of Architecture & Design, our engineers were challenged to imagine a mass timber structure with no steel connections or fasteners – all wood. Inspired by traditional Japanese joinery, the corner nodes are particularly complex, with optimized saw-tooth geometry used to transfer both tension and compression forces into the beams, columns, and braces. Critically, the joints are primarily tight-fit, requiring a high degree of precision and accuracy in detailing and fabrication. We had the opportunity to create this mockup of the larger building featuring the architecturally expressive “Hero Node”. It was modeled in Branch 3D and built in just 8 hours! BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group BNIM 📸: Graham Handford

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  • Branch 3D reposted this

    If you're in DC for the AIA conference this week, check out our projects in the area.. and our booth! Discover how next-gen design software, creative engineering and DfMA will change how structures are built. We're at Booth 4244, in the WoodWorks area, and we're featuring Branch 3D, our in-house structural design, analysis and detailing software, through an interactive demo. Lucas Epp will present on June 6 alongside Kai-Uwe Bergmann, FAIA of BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group on the mass timber Makers' KUbe at The University of Kansas' open house, co-hosted by HKS. Registration is free at the link in the comments. Come to our booth on June 6-7 and chat with Lucas, Mark Porter PEng StructEng FIStructE FEC, Justin Brown, Blake Allen and Benjamin Epp! Featured projects: Southwest Neighborhood Library, 2020 Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, 2010 Johns Hopkins University Student Center, 2024 Sycamore & Oak, 2022 40Ten Canton Office, 2022

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  • Branch 3D reposted this

    View profile for Michal Gula

    Come to the best 3D conference - 3DISE.com | 2D is against my religion! | Voice of 3D industry with 92K+ followers | CTO at Overhead4D we do reality capture | 3D scanning, as-builts, augmented reality, virtual reality

    The most boring job, structural design/analysis, is becoming more fun 😁 👉 Real-time adjustment with immediate feedback on building's cost and carbon footprint. 👉 Customizable design with Grasshopper 👉 Automatic shop drawing and BOM / CNC file generation Pretty cool. Check out Branch 3D Video credits: Lucas Epp, VP at StructureCraft 2D is against my religion! #3d #bim #engineering #technology #innovation

  • Branch 3D reposted this

    🚀 Meet Branch 3D, the next generation of structural design and manufacturing software. Built by an incredibly talented team (and currently hiring!) seated within StructureCraft and led by Lucas Epp and Marne Zahner, Branch has been used to deliver more than 600,000sqft of built projects. With an initial focus on mass timber, Branch cuts across traditional boundaries between design, manufacturing, and construction to create an integrated design platform that is a first for AEC software. 💡 Imagine: ● A building structure which resizes thousands of elements in real-time as you change massing, gridlines, or fire rating, enabling real-time cost and carbon feedback ● The full power of Grasshopper available to encode your custom building logic and design options ● A groundbreaking new Parametric Object in Rhino which embeds a Grasshopper script inside itself – a true “Family” object for Rhino! Ever made a GH script where you wanted to manually edit special cases in Rhino but still preserve these edits through parametric changes? ✅ ● Automatic (yet customizable!) shop drawing and BOM / CNC file generation capabilities for fully-detailed building elements, right inside Rhino ● Heads-up live CAM/manufacturing feedback that blurs traditional boundaries between design and production ● A relationship-based model that makes accessing contextual information easy for any building element or area 👥 If topics like these interest you... ● Real-time structural analysis revolutionizing early-stage feedback on building feasibility ● Open-source collaboration in the development of analysis and design algorithms ● Challenging existing engineering software and creating beautiful tools with tuned, modern UX (who says FE models need to be ugly?) ● Graph-based analysis tools that enable dynamic interactions and integrations ● Spatial acceleration data structures to create and analyze models with millions of detailed objects and blazing fast performance ● Relationship-first modeling to allow easy access to context ● Query languages and scripting interfaces for working with complex models ...and you’re a talented software developer, UI dev, or product manager interested in pushing forward the industry and working with some of the sharpest minds to do so – DM Lucas Epp or Marne Zahner! 🌍 Over the past 2.5 years, the Branch team has pushed 1000s of PRs and hundreds of thousands of lines of code – and in the process has created a framework for the future of building engineering and manufacturing software. 🤔 What feature excites you? Share your thoughts below! 💻 Want to try Branch on your next mass timber project? Let Lucas or Marne know. #SoftwareDevelopment #MassTimber #StructuralAnalysis #AECTech

  • Branch 3D reposted this

    View profile for Lucas Epp

    Vice President and Head of Engineering at StructureCraft

    This is a rare post and opportunity - something I've been waiting to do for quite some time. 🚀 Meet Branch 3D, the next generation of structural design and manufacturing software.  Built by an incredibly talented team (we’re hiring!) seated within StructureCraft, Branch has been used to deliver more than 600,000sqft of built projects. With an initial focus on mass timber, Branch cuts across traditional boundaries between design, manufacturing, and construction to create an integrated design platform that is a first for AEC software. 💡 Imagine: ● A building structure which resizes thousands of elements in real-time as you change massing, gridlines, or fire rating, enabling real-time cost and carbon feedback ● The full power of Grasshopper available to encode your custom building logic and design options ● A groundbreaking new Parametric Object in Rhino which embeds a Grasshopper script inside itself – a true “Family” object for Rhino! Ever made a GH script where you wanted to manually edit special cases in Rhino but still preserve these edits through parametric changes? ✅ ● Automatic (yet customizable!) shop drawing and BOM / CNC file generation capabilities for fully-detailed building elements, right inside Rhino ● Heads-up live CAM/manufacturing feedback that blurs traditional boundaries between design and production ● A relationship-based model that makes accessing contextual information easy for any building element or area 👥 If topics like these interest you... ● Real-time structural analysis revolutionizing early-stage feedback on building feasibility ● Open-source collaboration in the development of analysis and design algorithms ● Challenging existing engineering software and creating beautiful tools with tuned, modern UX (who says FE models need to be ugly?) ● Graph-based analysis tools that enable dynamic interactions and integrations ● Spatial acceleration data structures to create and analyze models with millions of detailed objects and blazing fast performance ● Relationship-first modeling to allow easy access to context ● Query languages and scripting interfaces for working with complex models ...and you’re a talented software developer, UI dev, or product manager interested in pushing forward the industry and working with some of the sharpest minds to do so – DM Marne Zahner or myself! 🌍 Over the past 2.5 years, the Branch team has pushed 1000s of PRs and hundreds of thousands of lines of code – and in the process has created a framework for the future of building engineering and manufacturing software. 🤔 What feature excites you? Share your thoughts below! 💻And if you want to try Branch on your next mass timber project, get in touch!

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