diff --git a/baseclasses/solvers/pyAero_solver.py b/baseclasses/solvers/pyAero_solver.py
index 58434ed..27c3ae6 100644
--- a/baseclasses/solvers/pyAero_solver.py
+++ b/baseclasses/solvers/pyAero_solver.py
@@ -54,8 +54,9 @@ def __init__(
         self.families = CaseInsensitiveDict()
         self._updateGeomInfo = False
 
-        # Initialize kwargs for addPointSet
+        # Initialize kwargs for addPointSet and customPointSetFamilies
         self.pointSetKwargs = None
+        self.customPointSetFamilies = None
 
     def setMesh(self, mesh):
         """
@@ -79,7 +80,7 @@ def setMesh(self, mesh):
         pts = self.getSurfaceCoordinates(self.meshFamilyGroup)
         self.mesh.setSurfaceDefinition(pts, conn, faceSizes)
 
-    def setDVGeo(self, DVGeo, pointSetKwargs=None):
+    def setDVGeo(self, DVGeo, pointSetKwargs=None, customPointSetFamilies=None):
         """
         Set the DVGeometry object that will manipulate 'geometry' in
         this object. Note that <SOLVER> does not **strictly** need a
@@ -94,6 +95,20 @@ def setDVGeo(self, DVGeo, pointSetKwargs=None):
         pointSetKwargs : dict
             Keyword arguments to be passed to the DVGeo addPointSet call.
             Useful for DVGeometryMulti, specifying FFD projection tolerances, etc.
+            These arguments are used for all point sets added by this solver.
+
+        customPointSetFamilies : dict of dicts
+            This argument is used to split up the surface points added to the DVGeo by the solver into potentially
+            multiple subsets. The keys of the dictionary will be used to determine what families should be
+            added to the dvgeo object as separate point sets. The values of each key is another dictionary, which can be empty.
+            If desired, the inner dictionaries can contain custom kwargs for the addPointSet call for each surface family,
+            specified by the keys of the top level dictionary.
+            The surface families need to be all part of the designSurfaceFamily.
+            Useful for DVGeometryMulti, specifying FFD projection tolerances, etc.
+            If this is provided together with pointSetKwargs, the regular pointSetKwargs
+            will be appended to each component's dictionary. If the same argument
+            is also provided in pointSetKwargs, the value specified in customPointSetFamilies
+            will be used.
 
         Examples
         --------
@@ -103,11 +118,15 @@ def setDVGeo(self, DVGeo, pointSetKwargs=None):
 
         self.DVGeo = DVGeo
 
+        # save the common kwargs dict. default is empty
         if pointSetKwargs is None:
             self.pointSetKwargs = {}
         else:
             self.pointSetKwargs = pointSetKwargs
 
+        # save if we have customPointSetFamilies. this default is not mutable so we can just set it as is.
+        self.customPointSetFamilies = customPointSetFamilies
+
     def getTriangulatedMeshSurface(self, groupName=None, **kwargs):
         """
         This function returns a trianguled verision of the surface