Drawings
A Drawing tab is a CAD-style canvas for sketching geometry, dimensioning it, and annotating it with structural loads and reactions. Drawings can be embedded in a report, and dimension and force values can be bound to variables so the drawing updates when the calculation does.
Create one from the + beside Drawings in the left sidebar, or Home → New → New Drawing.
Geometry
Draw with the tools in the Drawing ribbon. Twelve of them have keyboard shortcuts:
| Key | Tool | Key | Tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| V | Select | D | Dimension |
| H | Pan | N | Leader |
| L | Line | W | Distributed load |
| P | Polyline | M | Moment |
| R | Rectangle | S | Reaction |
| C | Circle | ||
| A | Arc |
The remaining tools — member force, constraint, mirror, offset — are chosen from the ribbon.
Snapping
While drawing, the cursor snaps to meaningful points: endpoints, midpoints, centers, intersections, quadrants, perpendicular feet, the grid, and the nearest point on an element. Grid snapping applies only when both snap-to-grid and the grid itself are enabled.
Dimensions
The Dimension tool (D) places dimensions of these kinds:
- Linear — horizontal, vertical, or aligned. Hold Shift to force horizontal, Ctrl to force vertical; the default is aligned to the geometry.
- Angular, radius, diameter, and arc length.
Double-click a dimension to open its inline editor, where you can override the displayed text or bind the dimension to a variable. A bound dimension stays in step with the calculation — change the variable and the drawing follows.
Use the Leader tool (N) for an arrow-and-text callout.
Structural loads
Drawings understand engineering load objects, not just arrows:
| Object | Notes |
|---|---|
| Force arrow | A general vector at an application point, with magnitude and angle. Can decompose into Fx / Fy components. |
| Point load | A concentrated force; direction vertical, horizontal, or at an angle. |
| Distributed load | Uniform, triangular, or trapezoidal, with start and end magnitudes, drawn along a baseline. |
| Moment | Drawn as an arc. A positive magnitude is counterclockwise. |
| Reaction | A support symbol — pin, roller, fixed, or spring. Can display its horizontal, vertical, and moment reactions, and a stiffness k for springs. |
| Member force | An axial force annotation on a member. |
Arrow lengths scale together, so the largest force on the drawing sets the scale and the rest stay proportional. Like dimensions, force magnitudes can be bound to variables.
Constraints
The Constraint tool applies geometric constraints that a solver maintains as you drag: horizontal, vertical, parallel, perpendicular, distance, coincident, fixed, equal-length, tangent, and concentric. Constraints re-solve automatically after you move a constrained element.
Embedding a drawing in a report
Insert a drawing box with Insert → Drawing on a Report tab. The box:
- shows a live preview of the drawing (and its scale, when not 100%)
- carries an Open Drawing button that jumps to the full editor
If the linked drawing tab is still empty, Open Drawing first bakes the box's current geometry into that tab as real, editable CAD geometry — so a drawing that arrived from a template can be edited like anything you drew yourself.
Export
From the Drawing ribbon's Export group:
- SVG — always vector; downloads as
drawing.svg - PDF — routed through the vector print pipeline, so the browser's print dialog is the export
The on-screen grid is a drawing aid and never appears in exported output.
Next steps
- Report Canvas — embed drawings alongside your calculations
- Keyboard Shortcuts — the full drawing key map