A basin plan and a clean render won't tell you whether the wave actually works. That answer only shows up when the target shape, the bottom profile, the generation cycle and the rider's line are solved in one calculation. We run that calculation before anyone pours concrete.
Calculate them in isolation and you can end up with a basin that looks fine on paper but never gives you the shoulder, the takeoff point or a rhythm you can repeat. So we start from the wave itself — where it has to break, how it has to travel, and what the geometry will and won't allow before you build it.
Height, front, takeoff area, breaking point, shoulder, ride length and crest behavior over time.
Envelope, depth profile, damping zones, reflections and geometry that strengthens or breaks the wave.
Water impulse, cycle repeatability, loads, pause between waves and limits of the selected principle.
Where the ride starts, where it ends, how waves move through a session and where physics limits flow.
Surface frames, control sections and breaking zones show you exactly where the geometry holds up and where the bottom profile or the generation has to change.
A masterplan, a basin envelope, a depth profile or even a rough bathymetry idea, plus the target wave and the site limits — that's usually enough to scope the first calculation. If you've already picked a generation principle, send that too. The same decisions set the budget — we break it down on the surf-pool cost page.
When the input is thin, we won't pretend we can hand you a finished wave. We'll tell you which parameters actually decide the outcome, what needs clarifying, and where the calculation can't be honest until you give us more.
Where the water has to fit, and what the ground already dictates.
The wave you want to build. Everything else is checked against this.
If a generation principle is already picked, it becomes a constraint, not a question.
Throughput is physics before it is a business plan — the basin has to settle between waves.
Water volume and wind change what the surface does, not just running cost.
The honest part: what is still moveable, and what the drawings have already frozen.
Surface frames, control sections, breaking point and shoulder behavior.
Which parts of the profile work, where reflections appear and where the wave weakens or breaks early.
Which parameters to clarify, what to change in bathymetry and what to check at the next stage.
With the target wave and the site constraints. Once we know the wave you need, we check the basin, the bottom profile and the generation cycle against it.
The same water impulse behaves completely differently depending on the depths, the reef shape, the shelf, the reflections and the damping zone. That's why generation has to be calculated together with the basin geometry and the bathymetry.
A masterplan, basin envelope, depth profile or bathymetry idea, target wave, site limits and generation principle are enough to define the first calculation scope.
The project receives water-surface frames, control sections, a bottom-profile conclusion, model limitations, generation notes and the next engineering step.
The search terms overlap, and so does part of the engineering — water, bottom profile, generation. The difference is what the water has to do. A wave pool only has to move people standing in it; a surf pool has to hold a face a rider can stay on, and that forces the bottom profile and the generation cycle to be solved against the wave itself. We break the difference down on wave pool vs surf pool.
A site sketch, a depth profile, the target wave, the generation principle, or just a couple of paragraphs describing the project — any of that is enough to start. The more of the checklist above you can answer, the sharper the first answer comes back.