Overview

Welcome to the Structure Design User's Guide. This guide is intended for users who need to become quickly familiar with the Structure Design Version 5 product.

This overview provides the following information:

Structure Design in a Nutshell
Version 5 Structure Design provides a set of tools for structure detailing and for designing small structure assemblies. This product addresses the detail design requirements of various industries. In particular it lets you:
  • Create planar plates and curved plates.
  • Create linear shapes, bent shapes and twisted shapes.
  • Split and merge shapes and plates.
  • Define cutbacks and trim shapes.
  • Place features such as cutouts, slots, end cuts, holes, etc., all of which can be in a central catalog.
  • Create parametric assemblies such as brackets, collars, complex steel plates with numerous parts made of plates and shapes, all of which are in a central catalog.
  • Include complete section catalogs covering DIN, AISC, EN and OTUA standards.

Structure Design makes use of Knowledgeware capabilities to create design features and to automate the generation of sketch-based profiles, pads and thick surfaces. It is the ideal tool for quickly designing steel assemblies for the tooling, aerospace, shipbuilding and plant design industries.

All commands share a consistent Windows graphical interface which reduces training time and is easy to use.

As a scalable product Structure Design can be used with other Version 5 products such as Generative Shape Design, Generative Drafting and Knowledgeware products.

Before Reading this Guide

Before reading this guide, you should be familiar with basic Version 5 concepts such as document windows, standard tool bars, and view tool bars. We therefore recommend that you read the Infrastructure User's guide that describes generic capabilities common to all Version 5 products.

You may also like to read the following complementary product guides, for which the appropriate license is required:

  • Generative Shape Design User's Guide
  • Generative Drafting User's Guide.

Getting the Most Out of this Guide

To get the most out of this guide, start with the tutorial in the Getting Started section.

The user task section of the book describes in detail the procedures for using all of the features of the Structure Design product. The procedures are divided into sections.

Navigating in the Split View mode is recommended. This mode offers a framed layout allowing direct access from the table of contents to the information.