Case study · indEx Enclosures × ShapeDiver
A Kent manufacturer put its product on the web with Grasshopper and ShapeDiver, and turned a shop window into a daily source of qualified leads.
The outcome
What indEx built, and why it matters.
The challenge
A precise trade with almost no 3D in it.
Customers had gone digital. The product hadn't.
indEx has manufactured custom ATEX-certified and industrial enclosures in Ashford since 2012, sized to each customer's exact requirements rather than picked from a catalogue. Its buyers, engineers and procurement teams in oil and gas, marine and heavy industry, increasingly design in 3D and want models they can drop straight into their own project files.
Most enquiries still arrived by phone and email, each needing a manual quote before anyone could see a price or a shape. A website drawing serious, specification-minded visitors was doing nothing more than a brochure.
“We're a very traditional industry with little 3D content, and we're the first ones to offer 3D files to our customers.”Alex Pawle · CEO, indEx Enclosures
Try it
Spec an enclosure.
Watch the price move.
Illustrative demo only. Figures are for this article, not indEx pricing. The live model runs on ShapeDiver and will replace this placeholder when embedded.
The solution
One Grasshopper model, three jobs.
indEx worked with a designer to encode its enclosure logic in Grasshopper, then connected it to the website through the ShapeDiver Viewer API. What began as a way to show a 3D box became the backbone of how the company sells, and soon, how it produces.
An instant answer to the two hardest questions.
“What would this cost, and what would it look like?” A visitor sets dimensions, picks a material, and gets a live 3D preview and indicative price immediately.
Every serious visitor becomes a lead.
Downloading the STL requires an email. Reaching the configurator and requesting a file is already a strong filter, so the leads that land are highly qualified, complete with a specification ready to quote.
The next step: files that build themselves.
The roadmap is to generate laser-ready flat patterns from the same model, turning a marketing tool into a production tool.
Why it works
The logic lives in one place.
ShapeDiver executes the Grasshopper file in the cloud, on demand. Every rule about how an enclosure is built sits in that one definition, so a change made once flows through to the 3D preview, the price, and the downloadable file together.
There is no custom geometry engine to maintain and no six-figure development bill. Because the model runs on ShapeDiver rather than a designer's laptop, any customer can reach it at any time. The same engine that answers a sales enquiry can hand over an STL, and next, the flat cutting files for the laser.
The results
From brochure page to daily qualified demand.
Since gating the STL download behind an email around six months ago, the configurator has become a steady, low-effort channel: qualified leads arrive daily, each already carrying a completed specification and a verified email to follow up on.
Because reaching and completing the configurator signals genuine buying intent, the team spends less time sorting serious enquiries from casual ones, and more time quoting work that is likely to close.
“To end up on a site selling electrical enclosures, open the configurator, fill it in and download a file, you have to be highly qualified. Nobody does that by accident.”Alex Pawle · CEO, indEx Enclosures
The journey
Thirteen years of precision, meeting the web.
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Founded in Kent
Five people set out to make bespoke stainless enclosures: top quality, delivered quickly.
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Moved to the Ashford factory
Room to match the ambition, opening the door to larger work and the ATEX-certified range.
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Alex Pawle acquires the business
Building on a high-quality product and process, with a focus on modernising how indEx sells.
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The ShapeDiver configurator goes live
A parametric Grasshopper model, connected to the web, gives customers instant 3D and pricing.
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The download becomes a lead engine
Gating the STL file behind an email turns everyday traffic into qualified, spec-complete leads.
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3D on every quote, and automated flats
Attaching a model to every offline quote, then generating laser-ready flat patterns from the configurator, plus a second configurator for larger cabinet enclosures.
You make enclosures, not software. How did you build a web configurator?
We did not do it all at once. The hard part is not the box, it is the rules behind it. The gland layouts, the hinge sides, the material thicknesses, the ATEX constraints that decide what is allowed where. We had someone who knew the company build the first model, then a 3D designer rebuild it properly in Rhino and Grasshopper. Connecting it to the site through the ShapeDiver Viewer API was the lighter part, and we built that front end with the help of AI coding tools.
Build yours
Turn your Grasshopper file into a configurator that sells.
ShapeDiver runs your Rhino and Grasshopper models in the cloud, 24/7, so customers can configure your product in the browser, and your team can automate the files that come out the other side.
See the live product at indexenclosures.com
