Who we are
I’m Michael Yoder, PE. Desert Springs Civil Engineering PLLC is my Idaho professional engineering practice — actively licensed and insured — and the entity under which my software and applied research work is held.
Desert Springs Civil Engineering is not currently accepting new land development civil engineering work.
While I’m no longer accepting new design projects, this site exists as a record of the engineering software work done under Desert Springs: native-IFC infrastructure authoring, contributions to the upstream open-source projects that work belongs to, and applied research.
The work
Native-IFC infrastructure authoring
IFC 4.3 alignments and corridors — PI-based horizontal design with tangent, arc, and spiral segments; PVI-based vertical profiles; coordinate reference system handling. The premise: the design is the IFC model, not an export from something else.
Saikei Civil is the name I give to my own contributions extending native-IFC authoring to civil infrastructure. It is not a standalone product. The work is contributed upstream into Bonsai and IfcOpenShell and lives under those projects’ licenses.
Upstream contributions — IfcOpenShell and Bonsai
Submitted and under review:
- #9304 — horizontal alignment authoring foundation for Bonsai, plus alignment API fixes · opened August 15, 2026
- #9305 — Windows build artifact collection for underscore-prefixed plugin DLLs · opened August 15, 2026
Google Summer of Code 2026
Mentee, 2026 program, working on native-IFC infrastructure authoring in Bonsai.
Patent-pending document reconstruction and verification
A system for reconstructing and verifying engineering drawings. U.S. provisional application filed July 2026. Further detail under NDA only.
Stack
Blender, IfcOpenShell, PyProj, and the buildingSMART IFC 4.3 schema.
Michael Yoder, PE · Idaho #P-17002 · B.S. Civil Engineering, Purdue University, 2010 · 16+ years · ASCE
What I’ll consider
- Technology licensing and software collaboration
- Open-source contribution and code review in the IFC and infrastructure space
- Speaking, teaching, and mentoring
- Independent technical review outside the Treasure Valley land development market