Struxt3D
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Struxt3D user manual

How to use Struxt3D: pick a template, set sizes, materials and loads, run the analysis and design, read results, and export reports and drawings.

This manual explains every part of the Struxt3D app, from your first model to the calculation report. Each chapter covers one task. Read them in order the first time, or jump to the one you need.

If you want to learn the engineering behind the numbers — how loads become forces, how a beam or column is checked — the tutorials teach that. This manual is about the app itself: where things are and what they do.

How the app is organised

Struxt3D runs in your browser at /app/. It has two parts:

  • Four setup steps that build a model with no drawing: Template, Size, Materials and Supports & loads. The 3D model sits beside each step and updates as you change values.
  • The workspace, where you run the analysis and design, read the results on the model, and edit members, nodes, supports and loads by hand.

The workspace comes in two interfaces showing the same model and results. Simple is a guided view with a few panels over the model. Full adds a menu bar, toolbars, a model explorer, a properties panel and tables, plus member end releases, rotation and line loads. You can switch at any time.

Two commands do the work: Run analysis (F5) solves the model, and Run design (F6) analyses it and checks — and if you ask, sizes — every member, slab, wall, footing and steel connection to the design code you chose.

Chapters

  1. Getting startedOpen Struxt3D in your browser, build and analyse your first 3D structure in five minutes, and learn where your work is kept between visits.
  2. The interfaceA tour of the Struxt3D workspace: the top bar, setup steps, Model and Results modes, and the Full interface's menus, explorer, properties, tables and status bar.
  3. Choosing a templateStart a Struxt3D model from one of 21 parametric templates — buildings, industrial, bridges, towers, foundations, elements, offshore — or draw your own.
  4. Setting the sizeSet spans, bays, storeys and heights in the Size step: the steppers, typed values, More options, the live model summary, and rebuilding after hand edits.
  5. Materials and sectionsChoose the design code, steel, concrete or timber, the grade, each member group's section and the slab and wall thickness in Struxt3D's Materials step.
  6. Supports and loadsSet bases, pad footings, floor use, finishes, wind and earthquake inputs in Struxt3D's Supports & loads step. Self-weight and code combinations are added for you.
  7. Editing the modelDraw members and nodes, set supports, add point and line loads, change sections and groups, release member ends and rotate sections in the Struxt3D workspace.
  8. Running the analysisHow to run a Struxt3D analysis with F5: what it solves (static cases, combinations, response spectrum), the progress stages, messages and fixing an unstable model.
  9. Viewing resultsShow displacements, axial, shear and moment diagrams, slab moments, utilization and vibration modes in Struxt3D, pick a load case or envelope, animate, and read the tables.
  10. Design and auto-sizingRun the design with F6 to check members, slabs, walls, footings, composite beams and steel connections to your code, size them automatically and read the utilization.
  11. Calculation reportsCreate Struxt3D calculation reports for the whole model or one member, slab, wall, joint or footing, with step-by-step calculations, and export them to PDF, Word or HTML.
  12. Reinforcement and connectionsSee the designed reinforcing bars and steel connections in 3D in Struxt3D, hide the concrete, and open each connection's drawing, parts, forces and checks.
  13. Shop drawingsMake steel and reinforced concrete shop drawings from a Struxt3D design: erection plans, connection details, assemblies, parts, reinforcement and bar schedules, as PDF, DXF, NC1 or BVBS.
  14. Saving, opening and exportingSave Struxt3D projects as .s3d files, open them again, keep work in the browser, export tables to CSV and the analysed model to OpenSees Tcl and Python.
  15. Keyboard shortcutsEvery Struxt3D keyboard shortcut: run the analysis and design, undo and redo, save and open, delete, cancel tools, and step values with the arrow keys.
  16. Accuracy, assumptions and limitationsWhat Struxt3D's analysis and design assume: linear elastic first-order analysis, simplified code loads, what is not modelled, and why an engineer must check the results.

Learn the engineering

The tutorials explain analysis and design step by step, with worked numbers and a template to follow along in the app.