Timber frames machine filesIn trials with workshops

Draw.Resolve.Make.

Line drawing of a timber-framed fisherman's house on six bents, with a long roof and a dormer, drawn by BoomkikkerGebinthuis fisherman's house · 183 parts · drawn by Boomkikker

Boomkikker turns a timber frame into the files a beam saw runs. Draw it in 3D, type it as a cutting list, or describe it to an assistant. Every joint is fitted, every part is checked, and nobody at the machine retypes a measurement.

01How a frame becomes parts

From a line
to a part.

CUT TO FACE · 45°CUT TO FACE · 45°0102031 080
01

Points and lines

A frame starts as centrelines in space, in millimetres. Where lines meet, a node forms. Draw them, type the coordinates, or repeat a whole section in a straight line, in a circle or along a helix.

02

Members

Each line gets a cross-section. The top face carries the height and the front face the width, so a 90 × 90 brace stays 90 × 90 all the way to the saw.

03

Joints

Every end that lands on another member is cut to the face it meets. Where five or six members crowd one node, overlaps are listed in millimetres, and which member runs through is a choice, not an accident.

04

Parts

Out comes a numbered cutting list: section, count, length and the cut at each end, with a drawing of all four faces of every part. The brace above is part 02, 1 080 mm on its long edge.

02Three ways in

Start from whatever
the job arrives as.

Single carport frame with numbered posts, beams, braces and raftersSingle carport · 27 parts
A

Draw it

Build the frame in the 3D fitting workspace: frames, repeats, shapes along sections. With a mouse or a finger.

Straight timber stair with housed stringers, every tread numbered as a partStraight stair, housed stringers · 16 parts
B

Type it

Write the cutting list in workshop terms: part, section, count, length, and the cut at each end (square, bevel, half bevel or double bevel) picked from a visual chooser. Then drag the control points on a live drawing of all four faces.

Timber frame of a forest house with a folded roof, raked posts and a sleeping loftLeaf Fold forest house · 74 parts · designed by an assistant
C

Ask for it

Connect Claude or ChatGPT once and describe the frame. The answer comes back as a drawing and a link that opens the project in Boomkikker. The assistant goes through the same checks, and never writes the machine file. A person does, after looking.

03The machine end

Files a beam saw runs.
And an export that refuses to fake a cut.

12production files
879parts
9,100machine operations, roughly

Hundegger BVX has no public specification, so Boomkikker was calibrated against a corpus of real production jobs. Every operation it reads re-encodes to exactly the values it was read from.

BTLx

Writes 2.0.0 and 2.3.1, the open standard for joinery machines. Reads every version from 1.0, plain or zipped as .btlz.

Hundegger BVX

No public specification exists. Calibrated against real production jobs instead, and checked against them on every release.

Hundegger BVN

The documented fixed-column format that K1, K2 and K3 machines read natively.

PDF · CSV · spec

A cutting list for the workshop floor and an A4 technical specification with a drawing of every part.

Export gate

When a format cannot carry an end shape, export stops. The panel names the parts whose ends would come out square and writes no file, unless someone ticks that those ends will be finished by hand. Existing BTLx, BVN and BVX files open, can be corrected and export again; anything Boomkikker cannot model is kept exactly as it arrived.

04Drawn in Boomkikker

From the example library. The larger frames were designed by an assistant and fitted by Boomkikker, part by part.

Two-storey timber house on piles with a steep roof and braced floorsPaalhuis on piles 283 parts
Circular raised timber pavilion with radiating beams, a screen wall and a stairThe Hollow forest cinema 243 parts
Tiny house frame with a curved saddle roof of straight raftersSaddle roof tiny house 99 parts
Garden house frame with numbered studs, plates and raftersGarden house frame 36 parts
Queen post roof truss with ten numbered partsQueen post roof truss 10 parts
05Built for the workshop

Works where
the saw is.

Dutch and English

The screens, the checks and every file it writes follow the language.

Offline

Installs on a phone or a computer and keeps working without a network.

No account needed

Cloud sync and share links are switched on per project, with sign-in by email link.

Plain-language checks

A file does not export while a problem is open, unless someone accepts it knowingly.

Design whatyou canactually build.

Boomkikker is in trials with workshops. Name the machine you run, and the answer will be honest about whether Boomkikker is ready for it.