Khepri

Khepri is an algorithmic design tool that integrates design, analysis, and optimization.

You describe a design once, in Julia, and Khepri realizes it in whichever application you point it at — a CAD system, a BIM authoring tool, a renderer, a game engine, or a LaTeX figure.

The idea

The same Khepri program produces an equivalent design in every backend. Only the using line changes:

using KhepriAutoCAD    # or KhepriRhino, KhepriBlender, KhepriUnity, KhepriTikZ, ...

sphere(xyz(0, 0, 0), 5)
box(xyz(10, 0, 0), 5, 5, 5)
surface_polygon(xyz(0, 0, 0), xyz(5, 0, 0), xyz(2.5, 5, 0))

Geometry, materials, views and rendering are expressed against one backend-agnostic API, so a model can be drafted in a fast viewer, rendered for presentation, and handed to a BIM tool for documentation without being rewritten. That portability is the project's central design constraint, not a convenience layer added later.

Packages

Package	What it does
KhepriBase	Core library: geometry, materials, levels and families, the backend protocol. Every other package depends on it.
Khepri	Umbrella entry point for Khepri users.
KhepriAutoCAD	Backend for AutoCAD, over a C# plugin.
KhepriRevit	Backend for Autodesk Revit, over a C# plugin.
KhepriRhino	Backend for Rhinoceros 3D, over a C# plugin.
KhepriGrasshopper	Integration with Grasshopper, Rhino's visual programming environment.
KhepriBlender	Backend for Blender, over a Python plugin.
KhepriUnity	Backend for the Unity engine, over a C# plugin.
KhepriUnreal	Backend for Unreal Engine, over a C++ plugin.
KhepriPOVRay	Ray-traced rendering via POV-Ray.
KhepriThreejs	3D visualization in the browser via Three.js.
KhepriTikZ	Generates TikZ for standalone figures or inclusion in LaTeX documents.
KhepriThebes	Pure-Julia SVG rendering, built on Thebes.jl and Luxor.jl.
KhepriSVG	Direct SVG output; generates the figures in this repository's documentation.
KhepriIllustrator	Step-by-step visual tracing of the evaluation of a Khepri program.
KhepriLibrary	Reusable parametric building components.
KhepriFrame4DD	Structural analysis backend, built on Frame4DD.
Frame4DD	Static and dynamic structural analysis of 2D and 3D frames. Pure Julia, no Khepri dependency.

Installation

Cloning on Windows

Some paths in this repository exceed Windows' historical 260-character limit. Enable long-path support in Git before cloning:

git config --global core.longpaths true

Without it, git clone aborts mid-checkout with Filename too long errors.

Five packages are in the General registry:

using Pkg
Pkg.add("KhepriAutoCAD")     # also: Khepri, KhepriBase, KhepriIllustrator, KhepriTikZ

The rest are not yet registered and install from this repository:

using Pkg
Pkg.add(url = "https://github.com/aptmcl/Khepri", subdir = "Julia/KhepriRhino")

Backends that drive an external application also need that application's plugin. KhepriAutoCAD, KhepriRevit, KhepriRhino and KhepriGrasshopper ship theirs with the Julia package; the rest are set up as their own documentation describes. Plugin sources live under Plugins/.

Repository layout

Julia/      the Julia packages above
Plugins/    plugin sources for the host applications
              KhepriAutoCAD, KhepriRevit, KhepriRhinoceros, KhepriGrasshopper  (C#)
              KhepriUnity (C#), KhepriUnreal (C++), KhepriBase (shared)
VSCode/     editor integration: khepriide, vsckhepri

These lived in separate repositories until 2026 and were consolidated here with their histories intact, so git log and git blame reach back through the move. The per-package repositories remain archived and read-only; versions registered before the move continue to resolve from them.

Documentation

Each package publishes its own site at https://aptmcl.github.io/Khepri/<Package>/. Sources are under Julia/<Package>/docs/.

Contributing

CI builds only the packages a change affects, worked out from the dependency graph: a change under Julia/KhepriBase rebuilds everything, a change to a single backend rebuilds that backend alone. Packages are tested on Windows against Julia 1.12 and nightly.

Tests that need a host application are gated behind environment variables (KHEPRI_RHINO_TESTS, KHEPRI_AUTOCAD_TESTS, and similar) and are skipped unless that application is present, so a normal test run needs none of them.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.