5n1designs builds professional Autodesk Inventor add-ins, custom iLogic automation, and browser-based engineering tools — drawn from real fabrication-floor workflows and 26 years of hands-on mechanical design. If it's repetitive, it can be automated.
Three ways I take the grind out of engineering work — compiled Inventor add-ins, custom iLogic rules, and standalone engineering web tools. All grounded in the same place: years spent designing tanks, skids, pipe spools, and pressure equipment, then automating the parts that shouldn't take an engineer's time.
Compiled, native-feeling ribbon add-ins for Autodesk Inventor — assembly organization, one-minute hose modeling, smart templates. Professional tools that look and feel like part of Inventor.
A library of 36+ production iLogic rules for colorizing, weight reporting, batch export, data cards, and parametric modeling — plus custom rules written to your standards and workflow.
Zero-install browser tools for the calculations and references engineers reach for daily — bolt stack-ups, thread data, span checks, conversions, color libraries, and more.
Have a repetitive task that eats hours? I build custom iLogic rules and compiled add-ins around your exact process — scoped, delivered, and supported.
Professional Autodesk Inventor add-in development — native ribbon tools that attack the biggest time sinks on a fabrication floor. Here are three of the flagships; the full suite runs deeper.
A docked panel that turns a flat, hundred-part assembly into color-coded groups, drawing-ready sub-assemblies, and color-matched bills of material — while every constraint stays editable at the top level. Organization becomes a layer on top of your model, never a restructuring of it.
A lightweight add-in that generates custom fabricated hoses — hydraulic, pneumatic, fluid, wire looms — from two picked fittings and optional guide points. A 20–40 minute manual hose build collapses to about one minute of clicks, and the output is a plain parametric .ipt at the top of your assembly. No Routed Systems, no Professional license.
Structural and piping smart templates fused into one connected, IP-protected modeling experience. Click two references — the system measures, infers connections, sets sizes from neighbors, generates standards-compliant identifiers, and writes the part. ASME and AISC standards are baked in; your company's conventions are encoded once and applied everywhere.
"I want one of these here." Pick a template, it lands auto-numbered and ready.
"Change this one." Click any component; its form opens pre-filled.
"Make this match that." Pick target, pick source — sizes copy instantly.
"This goes from here to here." Two picks, deductions applied, length written.
Beyond the flagships, 5n1designs has produced a growing suite of Inventor and AutoCAD add-ins and utilities — each born from a specific bottleneck on a real project. A sampling:
A shared iLogic .iLogicVb file hands over your full source code — one forward and the know-how walks out the door. 5n1designs add-ins ship as compiled, obfuscated .dlls: the lookup tables, feature math, and naming logic live behind a license check, native to the Inventor ribbon.
Before an add-in earns its place, the logic gets proven as iLogic on real parts and assemblies. The library runs 36+ production rules deep — and I write custom iLogic rules to your standards on request.
Proven in production on tank, skid, pipe-spool, refractory, and pressure-equipment work — the same automation that cut a subsea jumper turnaround from 3 weeks to 3 hours.
' Selection-based totals, grouped by stock number — ' select parts (or whole sub-assemblies), then run For Each selectedObj As Object In oSelSet Dim occ As ComponentOccurrence = TryCast(selectedObj, ComponentOccurrence) If occ IsNot Nothing Then ' Recursive scope: assemblies contribute their leaf parts If occ.DefinitionDocumentType = DocumentTypeEnum.kAssemblyDocumentObject Then AddAllLeafOccurrences(occ, componentsToProcess) Else componentsToProcess.Add(occ) End If End If Next If calcType = "Total Linear Feet" Then fullReport = CalculateLengthGroupedByStock(componentsToProcess, LENGTH_PARAMETER_NAME, useVerticalFormat) Else fullReport = CalculateWeightWithDetails(componentsToProcess, useVerticalFormat) End If MsgBox(fullReport, , "Calculation Result")
Self-contained browser tools — calculators, references, and visualizers built for the numbers engineers reach for every day. Each one is a single, offline-capable page.
5n1designs is built on 26 years of hands-on design engineering. Every tool here comes from a problem we hit ourselves, designing tanks, skids, pipe spools, and pressure equipment across the energy and industrial space.
That depth is the point: we know what needs to be built because we've done the work by hand — and built the automation that follows the design need, from iLogic rules to compiled add-ins.
A selection of design experience:
iLogic-driven Inventor workflows for concrete foundations, rebar, precast walls, and welded tank & platform assemblies — automating repetitive configuration work.
Cabinet- and skid-mounted equipment with full pipe routing and bundled spool layouts; modeled from LiDAR as-built scans.
Concept-to-final design of kilns and furnaces — structures, catwalks, ductwork, gas lines — with single-part and assembly iLogic template systems.
3D product modeling in Inventor with product renders and animation in MODO & Cinema 4D.
iLogic automation for subsea jumper design — configurable length, height, and connection options — cutting turnaround from 3 weeks to 3 hours.
Water-jetting components and custom machined parts; built iLogic templates, Excel-driven models, and custom Content Center components.
Design of FRACs, hydrators, and cementers, with Content Center standardization and iLogic automation throughout.
C# / .NET, VB.NET (iLogic), Python, JavaScript / Node.js, PowerShell, AutoLISP, HTML / CSS.
Autodesk Inventor API (COM + .NET add-ins), AutoCAD .NET API, Vault SDK, iLogic, Content Center, Plant 3D.
REST and SDK integrations, secure API-proxy patterns, and LLM/vision features embedded into tools — like the Claude-powered Inventor helper.
Node.js / Express, WPF / WinForms, WebView2, Three.js, Canvas, SQLite, single-file self-contained apps.
LiDAR / as-built modeling, parametric automation, spool & pipe routing, sheet-metal & DXF release, Excel-driven assemblies.
Product ownership end-to-end — requirements, architecture, UX, testing, deployment — shipping production software solo.
Whether you want one of the add-ins, a custom iLogic rule set built to your standards, or a tool that doesn't exist yet — tell me about the task that eats your hours, and I'll show you where they come back.