AnalysisGroup 3.0 Testing
Wrapping Up Everyday Analysis for Christmas

Ho ho! Are you ready for a few more goodies in AnalysisGroup? We have spent the past six months overhauling this workhorse product to give it a performance boost, some useful engineering enhancements, and a fresh new look.

The tool is now available to download for testing and feedback before we wrap up the development and finish our validation testing. If you have a few minutes, please run this test version with an old project or a new project to verify that it will meet your needs.

For a list of what is new, or to order you upgrade now (we won't process any orders until we are actually ready to ship it!) please visit www.iesweb.com/products/analysisgroup/

You will also find the test version available for installation on the custom Update & Patches page of the web site.

If you have comments, suggestions, or complaints, please send feedbacks on the test version to test@iesweb.com.

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What's Up with SCL Wood?

Tips & Tricks for IES Databases

VisualAnalysis 5.5 Package offers support for structural composite lumber (SCL) wood design, but IES has not pre-programmed the allowable stress values that vary among products and manufacturers.

We have tried to make it easy for you to setup a library of the manufactured shapes and materials you use. Then you can construct models and perform design checks in VisualAnalysis using these items. (Note: With the latest update of VisualAnalysis 5.50.0011, we have split-apart the database files holding 'standard' wood shapes and materials, from the SCL or 'engineered' items. This should help you keep your custom data separate from data that IES controls.)

In order to complete the process efficiently, you need to have ShapeBuilder 4.0 installed, which ships with the Shape and Material Database Editor utilities for database customization. Here is an overview of the procedure for customizing the databases to streamline your wood design tasks. Look in the help files for the various programs for more details about each step in the process, if you need help.

Manual SCL Design with Built-in Shapes:

1. Create your model in VisualAnalysis using existing SCL shapes and materials.
2. Create NDS Wood design groups to check the SCL wood shapes.
3. Define the "manufacturer's allowable stress values" for each of the design groups, as the defaults are all zeros (and no checks can be performed with zero values).

Custom SCL Shapes & Materials Design:

1. Create shapes in ShapeBuilder or import shape data through the Shape Database Editor.
2. Create custom materials, or modify existing wood materials in the Material Database Editor. (This step is optional, you can specify the design values for each and every design group in VisualAnalysis, but doing this step will make you much more efficient if you are re-using these items over and over.)
3. Use these shapes and materials in your VisualAnalysis model for analysis.
4. Create NDS Wood design groups in VisualAnalysis to check the SCL wood shapes.

A Jump Start from IES

Need a some assistance on designing SCL wood shapes in VisualAnalysis 5.5 Package? IES Technical support people have gathered some shape and material data from three popular manufacturers: Boise Cascade, Georgia Pacific, and TrusJoist. You can download this zip file: ies-scl-wood-data.zip, containing database files to get you going and a 'Readme.Doc' with some explanation. Use this information carefully and double-check the data before relying on it. Manufacturer data could change, so it is up to you to keep current!

Database Organization Tips

New Shapes & Materials

When creating custom shapes or materials, IES recommends creating new top-level categories in the databases so that they are stored in distinct data files. This allows you to "own" the customizations without fear of them being overwritten by future IES updates to shapes and materials installed with the software. Your data files will go into the IESCommonFiles folder and you should create backups of your custom data.

The database editors include documentation to help you understand the database systems and leverage them to better meet your needs!

Splitting Out Categories

If you have customized some shapes in one of our predefined database files, you should probably get them out of that file so that they are not replaced or deleted with our future updates. To do this, locate the .dbs or .dbm file in the IESCommonFiles folder, and create a copy of it and rename it to something that makes sense to you.

To simplify matters, remove ALL the other database files from the IESCommonFiles folder except for your file. Then run the database editor, rename the category to match your file name, and delete all the non-customized shapes and sub-categories from this file. Save it.

Now put the original file back into IESCommonFiles and open it in the database editor. Remove all your customized shapes from this category and save the file.

Now you can restore all the database files to the IESCommonFiles folder, as you wish (see below) and make sure you make a backup copy of any customized files you have.

Limiting Shapes and Materials in IES tools

Some customers may never use aluminum shapes, or wood materials in IES software. You can simplify the shape or material selection boxes by removing these shapes or materials from your system! The database system works by locating any and all .dbs or .dbm files in the IESCommonFiles folder, and "merging" them into a single selection tree. If you move any of these files out of this folder, they will automatically disappear from the selection boxes when you run IES tools. You can simplify your life a bit by controlling which shape or material categories are available in this way.

If you want more fine-grained control, say you never use steel WT or S shapes, you can delete those categories from the database using the Shape Database Editor. You will just need to make a backup copy of your customized file so that you can restore it if IES updates this file in the future, otherwise you will need to repeat the process should IES change the file in the future (something we don't do very often!).

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