Free-hand tools

Hovering a tool shows one sentence about what it does. Holding the button down opens the full recipe: the order of clicks, what snapping does, and how to undo. Ctrl+Z undoes every one of them, and Esc leaves the tool.

Click two nodes on the same line and the steel between them becomes one piece, with its own name and a constant section. It is the only tool that declares the whole member instead of touching an end, and what it declares wins over what the other tools would have done to it.

1. Nodes appear in the scene while the tool is armed.
2. Click the node where the piece starts, then the node where it ends.
3. Both have to be on the same line, with the same profile between them.
4. Give it a name. It shows in bold when you hover the piece.
5. The piece turns light blue and keeps its section: nothing copes it, only a weld touches it.

Click the piece that moves, then the piece it runs to. The end travels and comes out cut at the angle the other one arrives. It gives you length, and says nothing about what holds it there.

1. Click the piece that will move. The end that moves is the one at this node.
2. Click the piece it runs to.
3. Rotating or changing the profile of the other piece redoes the cut on its own.

The same two clicks, a different result. The target stays whole, the attacking piece is bevelled on its face, and the node is recorded as a welded connection: a bead in the 3D view and a green card. Without this, it is easy to trim a member and believe it was welded.

1. Click the attacking piece. The end that moves is the one at this node.
2. Click the target piece. It comes out untouched.
3. The end travels to its face and is bevelled at the angle it arrives.
4. Other members at the node weld against the same target.

Click a piece and one arrow appears, on the end this node commands. Drag it to lengthen or shorten, or type the value. Only the length changes. Where the trim asks how far, with another piece answering, this asks how much, and your hand answers.

1. Click the piece whose length will change.
2. One arrow appears, on the end this node commands. The far end belongs to the node at the other side.
3. Drag it. The value shows while you drag.
4. Near a reference line it snaps and stops there, and the bubble says what it snapped to.
5. With no snap, type the value and press Enter.

Four arrows appear in the middle of the piece: two for the Y axis, two for Z. Dragging one offsets the profile across its section without adding or removing a millimetre of steel. It is the same number as the offset fields, and it applies to this connection only.

1. Click the piece that will move.
2. Drag one of the four arrows. The value shows while you drag.
3. Near a support face it snaps: there the piece touches without overlapping.
4. Click Apply to take it to the canvas.

Cut a piece against a reference piece. If the reference passes through the middle, the piece becomes two, each set back at the face. If it meets the end, only the end is cut.

1. Click the piece to be cut.
2. Click the reference piece, the one doing the cutting.
3. Ctrl+Z brings the whole cut back.

Click the two halves and they come out as a single piece in the detail and on the canvas. It changes neither the steel nor the calculation, only what is drawn. Click both again to separate them.

1. Click one half, then the other. Order does not matter.
2. The cope that piece had at this node goes with it: a whole piece has no notch in the middle.
3. Only halves on the same line, in opposite directions, of the same profile can be merged.

Click two or more bars arriving at the node and press Enter. A mirrored pair of plates is born in the plane of those bars, seated against the outermost flange, one on each side. No steel moves and no end travels. There is no limit of two: a node with six bars arriving takes all six.

1. Click each bar the plate will hold, at the same node.
2. Clicking a chosen bar again takes it back out.
3. Enter creates it. Esc drops the selection without creating anything.
4. A bar out of plane is flagged; far out of plane, the plate is refused.

Click a plate or the connection drawing to take it out. Only what is recorded at this end goes. The profile itself is not deleted here: a member leaves through the canvas, not through the connection editor.

1. Click the plate, or the connection drawing, that goes.
2. What leaves is what is recorded at this end, and only there.
3. Ctrl+Z brings it back.