D-BL started as DiBL under google-code. By the time that google-code discontinued, an account by the name dibl was already taken and the i replaced by a dash.

The dotted polar grids were exercises to master new technology.

Timeline

• end of 2001:
  The first release for flanders thread diagrams
• before 2008:
  A desktop application with a few more traditional grounds, each predefined with a tedious process and some custom XML. This had a textual tree view of the diagrams, drilling down from spider to stitches to cross/twist. You can try to execute it with <a href=”https://adoptopenjdk.net/releases.html?variant=openjdk8”

  OpenJDK 8</a>.

• 2013:
  • Discovery of PhD research in progress that lead to tesselace
  • Redesign using SVG, a combination of a web application and inkscape plugins
    this allowed again more patterns but still had a limited choice of stitches
• fall 2015:
  Proof of concept with force graphs, Inspiration for this cheat-sheet.
  Both reduced the burden of complex GUIs with file IO and parsing complex data structures.
• 2017:
  • Discovery of Jo Edkins’ index on an out-of-copyright book, the sampler by Gertrude Whiting.
  • Request for a guinea pig to review GroundForge.
  • Discovery of the Droste effect: using thread diagrams as pair diagrams.
• January 2018
  • More tile configurations than bricks and bathroom.
• Mid 2019:
  • Extended the cheat sheet for longer lines between stitches.
• August 2021:
  • tutorials for a workshop at IOLI UnConn 2.0 hosted by the lace museum
  • birth of the nets page
• May 2022: birth of the pdf/print friendly page
• January 2023: birth of the symmetry page,
• mid 2023: Split the main GroundForge page into pattern/stitches/droste
• fall 2023 Recipes for snowflakes without the distorting initial geometry