I am Dennis Vercauteren.I do mechanical design, and I build configurators and software when a product needs them.

Today I do two things.

I do drafting for steel, sheet metal and machine builders: 3D models, production drawings, flat patterns and parts lists. As a complete design, or as extra capacity in a team that already has the work in hand.

And I build configurators on Kubuz CPQ, my own system. The price, the quote and the production files all come from the same product model. At Inoxplus, a client that sells made-to-measure stainless steel, customers put together their own product this way, across seven product families. It was the first real use of Kubuz CPQ.

Alongside that, I tend not only to think an idea through, but also to build it. With the geometry / semantics kernel I am looking at how a technical product can be described in a way that goes further than geometry alone. That kernel now runs underneath the configurators. 3D Synth came from the question of how you can approach 3D-print toolpaths differently, with more freedom in the Z-axis. Openframe started with a simple question: can you 3D-print a bicycle frame, and what then has to change in material and construction?

Not every experiment has to become a product. Building itself helps me see where an idea is strong, where it fails, and which layer is still missing.

WebGL made another step possible: technical geometry does not have to stay locked inside a CAD package.

A product model, a configurator and an interactive 3D view can meet directly in a web application.

That has led, in recent years, to several of my own projects and experiments.

With Tacton I went much deeper into constraint-based configuration.

That was interesting because complex products are not always well captured by a long chain of if/then rules. Constraints, domains and relations give another way to structure that complexity.

One of the projects I worked on was a highly configurable door system, with different layers, materials, fire requirements, locks, steel frames and specialised executions.

Around 2019 I built my first real industrial product configurator.

The problem shifted again. It was no longer only about a smart CAD model, but about a product with parameters, dependencies, rules and engineering output.

The difference looks small, but it changed how I think. You are not just automating a model. You are trying to capture the knowledge behind the product.

Autodesk Inventor iLogic changed how I looked at CAD.

A model did not have to be static. Parameters, rules and logic could become part of the design. That made the step from drawing to automating feel natural.

I was already experimenting with that before I started building full product configurators.

I started working independently under Kubuz.

The first years were strongly about mechanical design: stairs, platforms, commercial-kitchen equipment and other technical constructions and machines.

In the same period, parametric CAD became more important. Not only drawing a model, but thinking about how the model itself could absorb variation.

I started with 3D printing while desktop printers were still fairly experimental.

Then it was almost a discipline on its own. Today I see it mainly as a tool. A fast way to test a shape, make an idea physical, or push a concept further.

I started professionally as a drafter and CAD designer.

That is still my technical base: real parts, assemblies, production drawings and designs that eventually have to be made.