In the 3D modelling sector, Advance Steel has long been one of the most popular products to use for steel structures. This powerful yet flexible tool is used throughout the industry when there is a need to detail steel structures or steel fabrication. Giving outstanding results, it offers a whole host of user features for engineers to utilise when modelling a structure or object.

While you may already use this software within your company, some of the below tips could help improve your overall business work-flow:

Creating a folded element is easy

Although this is a fairly basic tip, it may be one feature that has sneaked under the radar with some Computer Aided Design engineers. In Advance Steel, when working with a normal polyline it is easy to create a folded element. If you begin from the polyline itself then you just need to select the folded beam option in the Command menu at the top of the screen. Once this has been done, it is possible for you to unfold it on both the workshop drawing as well as at the workshop itself via the CN file.

Easy to access the most commonly used steel connections

One great tip that will save any engineer a ton of time when working is using this feature in Advance Steel. The key thing to remember here is to select the star at the end of a steel connection when in the Connection Vault. This will then place it in a Favourite group for future use.

The major bonus with working this way is that all of your most used steel connections are then found at the same location, rather than at various places within the software. Less time is spent navigating around to locate the relevant steel connection needed and more time actually designing the steel structures themselves.

Colour any objects by their approval status

This software has many powerful functions and a very useful one is the ability to create an approval status for different elements in your design and link them to a colour. Once done this will then make them free to use for any drawing or design elements via the Document Manager. This is a really handy function for showing the approval status of various aspects within a drawing.

Load projects direct into Navisworks

If you are needing to export models into Navisworks to work with then Advance Steel makes this easy. Simply access the Advance Steel menu and click on the Import & Export tab to begin with. Then select the option that allows your drawing to be exported automatically to Navisworks. The exported file will be a DWF file for ease of use and will open up when you select the file in Navisworks itself.

Railing posts can be moved individually

This is one of the greatest tricks within Advance Steel for working on steel structures that engineers may not use currently. Once you have inserted your straight or curved rails on your supporting beams, it is actually possible to move each one individually. This is achieved by entering a positive or negative value into the Post Offset Along Rail Axis option via the Properties menu. Using this will allow engineers to have greater control and precision over individual beam settings when modelling.

Here at Restoric Design we are experts in the field of 2D and 3D modelling and have extensive knowledge of using Advance Steel. If you require CAD services for large contracts then give us a call today. UK based, we will use our many years of experience in the industry to help meet all your CAD needs.