Built for Autodesk Civil 3D

Designs you can build.
Volumes you can trust.

Pipeline grade design from weeks to hours, without adding headcount.

GLD Tools replaces the slowest, most error-prone step in pipeline design. Your senior staff stop hand-iterating profiles. Constructability and material quantities surface at planning instead of in the field. Delivery schedules stop being held hostage by one bottleneck.

Book a 15-min ROI Call → See the Pilot
Click to expand
What this means for your business
Days → Hours
Design Cycle Compression
Run a full corridor design in a single afternoon instead of a sprint. Trial route options, evaluate spec changes, and validate constructability before committing the project, without pulling a senior designer off another job.
Zero
Late-Stage Surprises
Constructability and equipment-access risk surface on day one, not when the contractor mobilises. Cut, fill, and haul volumes are accurate at the start of the project, so the numbers you quote are the numbers you build.
One
Source of Truth
Every profile is reproducible and audit-ready, whoever runs it. No more designer-by-designer variation, no more "trust me, it's compliant" handovers to QA or the client.
The Platform

Built for the work
that decides project margins.

GLD Tools covers the four phases of pipeline delivery where time and money leak out: grade design, material takeoff, earthworks planning, and client deliverables. Start with the one that hurts most, add the rest as the wins stack up.

PipeGrade Pro FLAGSHIP

Profile Automation

The grade design module, where most projects bleed time.

  • Compliant profiles ready to issue, not redo
  • Constructability flagged at planning, not at handover
  • Senior staff freed from PVI-by-PVI iteration
  • Same answer, every designer, every time
CrossSections Pro LIVE

Quantities & Takeoff

Cut, fill, and material volumes the estimator can defend.

  • Accurate cut/fill volumes from real terrain, not approximations
  • Submittal-ready Excel and PDF in one click
  • Estimator, designer, and field crew on the same numbers
Grading Pro BETA

Earthworks & Corridors

Spoil, slope, and corridor planning at project scale.

  • Mass haul quantified before commitment
  • Batch-run corridors instead of one-at-a-time
  • Construction risk surfaced at planning, not in the field
Reporting Pro BETA

Client Deliverables

Submission packages without the deliverable scramble.

  • Client-branded reports on the same day as design
  • Multi-alignment programs coordinated, not chased
  • QA-ready records that survive third-party review
The Cost of Doing It Manually

Grade design is where
your project economics break.

Pipeline grade design is the choke point: a senior-staff task, repeated every time a pipe size, route, or client spec changes. The hours spent iterating it don't just slow delivery, they decide whether your material volumes are accurate, whether the design is buildable, and whether the project comes in on margin.

Without GLD Tools

What it costs you today

  • ✕ Senior designers locked into manual iteration instead of higher-value work
  • ✕ Cut, fill, and haul volumes carry uncertainty into the estimate
  • ✕ Constructability problems surface in the field, not at planning
  • ✕ Every spec change or route option re-starts the clock
  • ✕ Late-stage rework eats the margin you priced in at award
  • ✕ Different designers produce different profiles, QA can't catch them all
  • ✕ One person leaves and your delivery capacity halves
A capacity ceiling priced into every project.
With GLD Tools

What changes

  • ✓ Accurate cut, fill, and material volumes on day one
  • ✓ Constructability and equipment-access risk visible at planning, not at handover
  • ✓ Route, spec, and pipe-size options evaluated in hours, not write-offs
  • ✓ Senior staff freed for review, QA, and the deals that grow the firm
  • ✓ One repeatable output the client and the QA reviewer can trust
  • ✓ Junior designers producing senior-level work, supervised by your best people
Capacity unlocked. Margin protected.
PipeGrade Pro
FLAGSHIP
Designs you can issue.
Not redo.

PipeGrade Pro is where you stop losing margin. It takes the part of pipeline design that's always been measured in person-weeks, senior staff iterating grade against terrain, bend specs, slope, and equipment access, and turns it into a configurable run that finishes during a coffee.

The output isn't a draft to clean up. It's a compliant, audit-ready profile written directly back to Civil 3D, the deliverable, not the starting point.

Book a 15-min ROI Call → Pilot Programme
PipeGrade Pro running a full corridor in under a minute
01
Constructability called on day one
Steep terrain, equipment-access limits, and the spots that will need hot bends are surfaced at planning, not when the contractor mobilises. The most expensive rework is the rework you didn't see coming.
Outcome
02
Material volumes you can defend
Cut, fill, and haul quantities derived from the real grade and real terrain, not approximated from a draft. The estimator, the field crew, and the client see the same numbers from day one.
Outcome
03
Route and spec options without the wait
Trial alternate routes, pipe sizes, or cover specs in an afternoon. The client sees real numbers on each option before anyone commits, instead of one draft and a lot of caveats.
Outcome
04
One answer your team can defend
Whoever runs it, junior designer, senior, or someone you onboarded last week, gets the same compliant profile from the same inputs. QA review stops being a hunt for inconsistencies.
Outcome
05
Auditable from inputs to issue
Every project ships with a full record of the inputs, the constraints applied, and the decisions made. Built for third-party review and the questions that show up two years later in a dispute.
Outcome
06
Native to the tools your team already uses
Runs inside Autodesk Civil 3D. No new platform to train on, no data migration, no parallel workflow. The output writes directly into the drawings your designers and clients already work with.
Outcome
How Adoption Works

Configure once.
Run it across every project.

Your team is producing compliant profiles by the end of week one. No new platform, no consultant onboarding, no months of change management.

1

We configure to your spec

Your pipe specs, your cover rules, your client's bend limits, your equipment classes. The engine reflects how your firm designs, not someone else's defaults.

2

Your designer runs a corridor

Select the alignment, choose the project priority, click generate. The compliant profile is back inside Civil 3D before they refill the coffee.

3

Review and issue

The senior designer reviews instead of building. Comments, tweaks, approvals, not a from-scratch round of iteration. The profile goes to the client the same day.

4

Deliverable, audit, done

One click produces the client-branded report, the data band, the LandXML, and the audit record. The deliverable package isn't a separate week of work.

PipeGrade Pro Profile Designer — PVI table, profile chart, bend compliance, export tools
Click to expand
Bending Compliance
Run full bend checks against pipe spec limits with color-coded pass/fail status
Data Band Export
Export PVI tables and data bands for profile sheets and construction drawings
LandXML Export
Export profiles in LandXML format for interoperability with other design platforms
3D Shapefile Export
Generate 3D shapefiles for direct import into Road Eng and Global Mapper
Tuned to the Project, Not the Tool

Different projects.
Different priorities.

One client wants minimum excavation. The next wants the smoothest possible grade for large-diameter pipe. A third just wants the simplest layout for the field crew. GLD Tools matches its strategy to your project, you pick the priority, the engine optimises around it.

Minimum cost

Keeps the pipe as high as constraints allow so excavation, haul, and trenching volumes drop. Best when the project win is priced on earthworks.

Where it wins: earthworks-driven projects, shallow terrain

Smoothest ride

Spreads grade change across the corridor for minimum bend severity. The senior designer's preferred output on large-diameter pipe and high-spec clients.

Where it wins: large-diameter, high-pressure, premium contracts

Simplest layout

Produces the cleanest profile with the fewest grade breaks for the field crew. Easier to lay out, easier to stake, easier to QA.

Where it wins: tight construction schedules, remote sites

Your house rule

Your firm's own design philosophy, configured into the engine and reused on every project. Consistency across designers and across years.

Where it wins: framework agreements, repeat clients
Built for Real Pipelines, Not Generic CAD

Designed to your spec.
Not the other way around.

The reason generic Civil 3D tools always need a senior designer to clean up the output is that they don't understand pipe. GLD Tools is built around the rules your engineers and clients already enforce, so the first run is the deliverable, not the draft.

Your spec is the law

Pipe sizes, cover rules, bend limits, joint lengths, hot bend inventory, configured to your standards and your client's. The engine doesn't try to convince you of better defaults.

Construction reality factored in

Wheeled, tracked, and winch equipment access. Cross-slope terrain on the controlling side. Hot bends pre-locked where your client mandates them. The output is something the field crew can actually build.

Adapts to your project, not vice versa

Every rule is configurable. Different client on the next project? Different pipe size on the next segment? Reconfigure once and the engine respects it across the entire corridor, without rewriting the workflow.

The output respects your firm's engineering judgement, it just produces it 100× faster.

Every constraint is configurable

Pipe Profile Settings
Pipe Profile Settings
Click to expand
Slope Settings
Equipment-Specific Slope Limits
Max & preferred thresholds per equipment class. Click to expand
Pipe Bend Settings
Bend Settings & Hot Bend Whitelist
Pre-engineered locations & project bend inventory. Click to expand
What This Means For You

Different seats.
Different wins.

The case for GLD Tools looks different from each chair at the table. The result is the same: a more profitable, more predictable design business.

01
If you run delivery

Engineering Manager / Principal

Your senior staff are the bottleneck on every project, and the cost of a missed delivery date or a late-stage redesign comes out of your margin.

“We deliver more work through the same team. The grade design isn't the gating item anymore, reviews are. That's where our senior people should be.”

02
If you sell the work

Business Development / Estimating

Tight quote windows. Clients asking for design options before they commit. Risk hiding in every assumption. The cost of being wrong shows up in change orders, scope creep, or work you didn't win.

“We can offer the client three options and quote each one defensibly, in the same time it used to take to put together one. We win on speed and on price confidence.”

03
If you do the design

Pipeline Designer / Engineer

Endless iteration on PVI placement, cover checks, and bend compliance. The same problem solved by hand for every new alignment and every spec change.

“I get to do the engineering. The repetitive grade-iteration work that ate my afternoons is a button click. The senior reviewer is happier with what I send them.”

—— PROJECT: 41 km Pipeline Corridor ——

Traditional workflow
  Design effort:       ~3 weeks of senior time
  Iteration cycles:    4–6 per route option
  QA review:           manual, error-prone
  Route options priced: 1 (no time for more)

With GLD Tools
  Design effort:       Under 1 minute of compute
  Iteration cycles:    instant for each spec change
  QA review:           audit-ready record included
  Route options priced: 3+ in the same window

What changes for the business
  ✓ Senior staff freed for review and pursuit
  ✓ Design cycle shrinks from weeks to days
  ✓ Margin protected from late-stage rework
  ✓ Client sees options, not excuses

RESULT: Designs you can build. Margins you can keep.
A Real Corridor, Real Outcome

Weeks of design.
One afternoon.

On a recent 41 km pipeline project, the part of design that used to consume most of a senior designer's month finished in under a minute, with a compliant profile, a client-ready report, and full audit trail. The senior staff freed up went to the next project, not the rework queue.

  • ✓ Design hours freed for the work that actually grows the firm
  • ✓ Constructability and equipment-access risk surfaced before commitment
  • ✓ Output ready for the client deliverable on the same day
  • ✓ A QA-ready audit trail your reviewer (or the client's) can defend
  • ✓ Same answer whoever runs it, senior, junior, new hire
  • ✓ Civil 3D native, the workflow your team already knows
See what this looks like on your project →
Client-Ready Deliverables

Reports your client
opens and signs off.

Every run produces a complete project report, not a summary, a full record of the design and the decisions behind it. The kind of report that ends the "show me your work" question on the same email, and the one your QA reviewer (or the client's) can defend two years later in a dispute.

  • ✓ Client-branded reports, generated with the design, not after it
  • ✓ Constructability risk called out by station, not buried in a profile
  • ✓ Hot bend schedule and field-crew layout, ready for procurement
  • ✓ QA-defensible: same inputs, same answer, every reviewer
  • ✓ No separate deliverable scramble at end of project
  • ✓ HTML and Excel formats your engineering and estimating teams already use
See a real client deliverable
A 41 km corridor. The kind of report you'd hand to a client.
Open the Report →
Grade Summary — quality metrics, deflection statistics, runtime
Design Slope Analysis — rolling average classification with risk bands
Existing Ground Slope Analysis — terrain classification and risk windows
Slope Comparison — EG vs Design with improvement metrics
Hot Bend Locations — station, degree, deflection, type
Violations and Warnings Report — flagged items with resolutions
PVI Table — full station, elevation, grade, deflection data
Engine Optimization Log — step-by-step optimization phases
Quality metrics, deflection statistics, and runtime performance. Click to expand.

Grade Report: PL-DESIGN-02, 41 km corridor. Click any tab to explore.

Expanded view
About

Built by the people
who lived the problem.

Ground Level Design Inc. builds tools for the firms that build infrastructure. We're not a generic CAD vendor. We're pipeline designers who got tired of watching projects lose money in the same place every time.

GLD Tools came out of major pipeline programmes where grade design was the gating item on every milestone, and the source of most late-stage rework on delivery. The senior staff doing it knew exactly what good looked like, they just didn't have the time to produce it across every alignment, every spec change, every route option. We built the tool we wished we'd had.

Today, firms use GLD Tools across the full project lifecycle: route and corridor evaluation at planning, accurate material volumes for the estimate, detailed grade design for delivery, constructability and equipment-access planning, and machine-control-ready profile exports. The case is the same at every stage: identify the costly problems early, eliminate the rework, and stop carrying risk you don't need to.

Have a quick conversation →

Prove the ROI on your project, not ours
Pick a corridor.
See the numbers.

We don't ask you to take it on faith. Give us one real corridor, ideally the most painful one you have right now. We run it through GLD Tools alongside your team's normal process. You see the time, the output, and the cost case side by side. The validated deliverable is yours either way.

Book the Pilot →

Annual per-seat licensing. Early-adopter pricing available for pilot participants.

How the Pilot Works
01
You pick the corridor One real alignment from a live project. The harder it is, the better the ROI case.
02
We configure to your specs Your pipe, your cover rules, your client's bend spec. Configured by us, no setup burden on your team.
03
Side-by-side, timed Your normal workflow runs in parallel. Hours, outputs, and constructability calls are documented.
04
You keep the deliverable The validated profile, reports, and exports are yours, regardless of whether you buy.
05
Honest ROI debrief Numbers on the table: hours saved, errors avoided, capacity unlocked. No pressure. Just the case.

One corridor.
One conversation. Real numbers.

Founder-led. 15 minutes. We'll look at your project, talk about where the time and margin go today, and lay out what GLD Tools changes, with numbers. No deck. No generic pitch.

Book a 15-min ROI Call → Pilot Programme

Annual per-seat licensing. Early-adopter pricing for pilot participants.