If you are new to Graitec Advance Design community then in this article we will draw your attention to useful tools that you may not have noticed in your first few weeks of work, but which can help you to complete your projects faster and more conveniently.

1. Generate, not draw …

One of Advance Design’s favorite features for advanced users is the ” … on selected” from the context menu under the right mouse button (PPM). These capabilities are available by selecting one or more elements. In this way you can quickly apply loads, insert supports, generate points, connections …. It couldn’t be easier.

2. Stay up to date with the parameters of the FEA model…

Another solution that is ideal to use when working with a model is the “Hint Label”. Its advantage is that it can be turned on and off via the “status bar” (see screenshot below) but it is also configurable. This way you can e.g. check the length of an element, coordinates of end points or corners of an object. Why is this so important? With “tooltips” there is less clicking (e.g. the “measure length” function) or “reading” into the parameters in the properties window…

3 Hide/Display FEA model objects with one click…

Finally, I chose a function that I as a user myself discovered very late…. i.e. access to the shortcut in the context menu (PPM) “Display…”. This is essentially a shortcut to the object display settings. What I liked about it is that I can “peel” the model of loads, cladding etc without having to click on the “Project Browser” which takes my attention away from the model content. In conjunction with the “isolate” function I can get at objects that are not system related.