Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis Professional structural software helps engineers more quickly perform simulation, analysis, and code-based design for any type of structure. There's an active technology preview on Autodesk Labs for Dynamo Plug-in for Robot Structural Analysis. Autodesk React Structures is a new offering being developed for the structural engineer that is fully integrated into the BIM process and the rest of the Autodesk product portfolio. React Structures is being designed to be a powerful yet easy to use structural analysis offering for structural engineers. We see Autodesk React Structures as intuitive structural analysis software that connects to the BIM process.
In addition to its own website, it has traditional pages on the Autodesk Labs website.
Based on feedback received to date, the team recently updated the technology preview. Product Manager, Brian Frank, blogged about the plans for the update. Senior Development Manager, Marcin Danielak, posted Brian's detailed account of what is in this update on the React Structures discussion forum.
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Backgrounds
One piece of feedback we heard from you is how important it is to get screen captures of the model into the documentation that you prepare or messages that you share with other members of the project team. We have some plans to address screen capture needs more fully down the line, but we wanted to provide you with an easy to use option now to get “document ready” screen captures into your workflow. Many users said that while a gradient or colored background was useful during modeling, they would like to have a completely white background when taking a screen capture. To that end, we have introduced a white theme that is easily accessible from the theme menu in the lower left-hand corner of the application. You can now quickly and easily switch the background to white to make those important screen capture work with your document needs.
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Properties
Another area of feedback that was requested was the ability to take the properties window and have the ability to relocate it on the screen. You will now have a relocatable and dockable properties window that you can control the placement of on the screen.
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4K Displays
We have also addressed issues that users leveraging high definition/4K displays were experiencing. If you are using these displays, please let us know if we have addressed you concerns when you experience the next release.
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Units other than Imperial
Many of you asked for the ability to change the units to something other than Imperial. Based on your feedback we accelerated this in our roadmap, so you will now have access to other unit systems.
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Dynamic Input
One of the items that we are most excited for you to experience is the ability to use Dynamic Input controls when placing structural elements. These new controls give you precise input to the location and alignment of elements within the model. We have also created the ability for you to control the use of this feature, enabling a user to switch it on or off as needed. This not only works in plan view but will also give you control of operations in the 3D view of your model.
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Dynamo Visual Programing Support
React Structures Tech Preview 2 will ship with the Dynamo visual programming environment that will be accessible right from the Model command ribbon pane. This is great news for React users, as you will now be able to leverage the power and control of describing structures with an easy to build Dynamo script directly from within the React environment. We are really excited to see how you leverage this capability and are looking forward to your feedback. It is important to remember that while Dynamo can enable the ability to create some very complicated structures, it can also be used to quickly create simple geometry and build relationships between those elements. With Dynamo, you now have some easy to use tools to create parametric structural analysis models directly in React.
Thanks, Brian and Marcin.
Joining the Labs project is required to provide feedback in the forums. So if you would like to join:
You can provide your feedback to [email protected] or in the forums (one for Robot Structural Analysis users and another for first impressions from new users).
Reactive structures are alive in the lab.