Every revision to the design modules and the site, newest first, written in the same change that ships it. A major revision changes a result you may already have printed or adds a capability a design depends on; the rest is polish.
ESR-1387 Table 1 footnote 13 gives a Parallam PSL 1.9E–2.2E column two routes: Fc for column applications (printed "500 psi", which we read as 2,500 psi), or the published 2,700 / 2,900 psi with NDS Chapter 15 and a minimum eccentricity e2 = t/6 + 5L²/4608 across the narrow face. The column used only the first. Step 4 now offers the second as an option; the default is unchanged.
Step 4 has a new choice for Parallam PSL 1.9E, 2.0E, 2.1E and 2.2E columns: Fc = 2,500 psi for column applications (the default, as before), or the published Fc with NDS 15.4 and the minimum eccentricity e2. Picking the alternative shows e2 with its numbers, and Steps 3, 4 and 5 say which route the design is on.
On the alternative, every compression combination in Step 5 is checked with NDS 2024 Eq. 15.4-3 and 15.4-4, or Eq. 15.4-1 and 15.4-2 when the combination carries the lateral load: Fc′ on the published Fc, the e2 moment across the narrow face resisted by the report’s face / plank Fb with its volume factor, and the side load’s own fb, Fb′, FcE and FbE taken from the combined check. That interaction is what the Combined column, PASS / FAIL and the governing row read; the Step 4 factor matrix adds the face / plank CV.
Expect less capacity on the alternative: e2 is at least t/6, so the eccentric bending stress is at least fc itself. A 2.0E 5.25x9.25 post, 10 ft pinned, carrying 30,000 lb at CD = 1.0: axial D/C 0.436 on 2,500 psi, Eq. 15.4-3 = 0.605 on the alternative. In the posts we checked it carried 54–70% of the axial load the 2,500 psi route allows. It is there for a design that should not rest on how the printed "500" is read.
New book icons quote NDS 2024 §15.4.1 with its four equations and ESR-1387 Figure 2 (the eccentricity e2), beside footnote 13.
A 5x5-or-larger sawn member saved with a Table 4A, 4B or 4C species — our own sample's 6x6 post among them — used to design on the dimension-lumber row while applying Table 4D's factors and citing Table 4D. Both the beam and the column now refuse the pair, and Step 3 says in red which table to pick from. Separately, the column now designs Parallam PSL 1.9E–2.2E on ESR-1387 Table 1 footnote 13's column Fc, which the report prints as "500 psi" and we read as 2,500 psi, in place of the tabulated 2,700 / 2,900 psi.
Sawn species vs section: a Table 4A / 4B / 4C species on a timber (5" x 5" and larger), or a Table 4D species on dimension lumber, now designs nothing in either the beam or the column. Step 3 shows a red row naming the table to pick from, and the picker shows the same sentence. The picker has always cleared the other choice when you crossed the boundary, so only a stored project could reach this state.
The sample project's Post P-2 (6x6) now uses Douglas Fir-Larch (Timbers), No. 2 (Posts & Timbers): Fb 750, Fc 700, Emin 470,000 psi, in place of the Table 4A row's 900 / 1,350 / 580,000. Its governing axial D/C goes from 0.534 to 0.733, still a pass. The sample report is reprinted.
Parallam PSL 1.9E, 2.0E, 2.1E and 2.2E columns design on Fc = 2,500 psi (ESR-1387 Table 1 footnote 13, column applications). The report prints "500 psi", and 1.8E — tabulated at 2,500 with no footnote — shows what was meant. Step 3, Step 4 and Step 5 state the reading, and the book icon quotes the footnote exactly as printed. The footnote's alternative, NDS Chapter 15 with a minimum eccentricity e2, is a separate Step 4 option (the next release note). A short post loses up to about 14% of its Fc′ (a 2.2E post at 4 ft: 13.6%); a slender one much less.
TimberStrand 1.3E Fc⊥ = 710 psi is unchanged. ESR-1387 footnote 15 (670 psi for products not labelled "Rim Board") applies to the face / plank value, 635 psi, not to the joist / beam value the software uses.
A wood column carrying wind or another lateral load used to be checked for combined bending and axial compression (NDS 2024 §3.9.2) only when it was sawn lumber; a glulam, LVL, LSL or PSL column got an amber note saying the lateral load was not checked, and no column was checked for shear. Every rectangular column is now checked for both. Glulam reads Supplement Table 5B — Fbx for bending about X-X, Fby for Y-Y by its number of laminations — and LVL, LSL and PSL read the evaluation report’s joist / beam or face / plank values, each with its own volume factor. Shear is a new column of the Step 5 table, fv = 1.5V/A against Fv′ per §3.4.2.
Glulam columns: strong-axis (x-x) bending reads Table 5B Fbx — × 0.88 deeper than 15 in (footnote 4) — with the volume factor CV of NDS 5.3.6 (L = the column height), and the lesser of CL and CV governs, never both; weak-axis (y-y) bending reads Fby for 4 or more, 3 or 2 laminations with the flat use factor Cfu of Eq. 5.3-2.
LVL, LSL and PSL columns: strong-axis bending reads the report’s joist / beam Fb, weak-axis bending its face / plank Fb, each with that orientation’s volume factor from ESR-1387 or ESR-1040 — applied with CL above 1.0 and as the lesser at or below it (NDS 8.3.6.1). Microllam thicker than 3.5 in has no plank volume factor in its report, and the check says so rather than guess.
Shear (NDS 3.4.2, Eq. 3.4-2) for every rectangular column with a lateral load, sawn included: V from the same end-condition statics as the moment, against Fv, glulam Fvx / Fvy (with Cvr and Table 5B footnotes 1 and 2) or the report’s joist / plank Fv. It joins the Step 5 table, the governing-row ranking, the CD per check and the Step 4 factor matrix.
Step 3 (beam and column): the LVL / LSL / PSL table is grouped the way ESR-1387 Table 1 is — joist / beam orientation, face / plank orientation, axial — with the report’s face / plank Fb and Fv added, and its summary shows the same header and row; the glulam column’s summary brings back the Table 5B and Table 1C / 1D columns the new checks read (Fbx, Fby, Fvx, Fvy, Sx, Sy).
The tall-wall wood column guide’s shear row (D/C 0.116) is now the module’s own result instead of a hand check.
A combination whose lateral load could not be fully checked — a value the product’s table or report does not give, a missing unbraced length — now reads INCOMPLETE in amber with "not checked" in that column, instead of PASS.
The building codes each print their own way — NDS writes in. and Fc⊥, ASCE writes lb/ft² and Kzt, AISC writes bf, IBC writes psf per foot of depth — and the app used to follow whichever code a step came from. It now does what every established engineering program does: the code’s values are quoted, its typography is not. Every symbol carries a real subscript or superscript (Fb, SDS, Kzt, Emin), every unit has one spelling (in, ft, psf, pcf, plf, klf, lb, kips, lb-ft, kip-ft, psi, ksi), every table header is one weight, and every footnote marker is a superscript — in the picker tables, the step summaries, the detailed calculations, the guides, the examples and the printed report alike. The book-icon excerpt beside a value still quotes the code exactly as printed. Values and results are unchanged; only how they read.
Symbols: a bare "Fb", "SDS", "Kzt", "Ie", "Emin", "bf", "Ix" or "GCpi" no longer appears anywhere the app writes — the trailing letters are set as a true subscript, on screen and on paper, in the steel section tables, the NDS design-value tables, the wind and seismic parameter tables and every guide alike.
Units: in replaces in. and inches (the dead-load catalog, the section tables, the detailed calculations); psf replaces lb/ft² in the wind module; plf and klf replace lb/ft and kip/ft; lb replaces lbs; lb-ft and kip-ft replace lb·ft and ft-lb. The ASCE 7-22 Table 4.3-1 live-load replica shows US customary values only.
Table headers: one medium weight for every table in the app — code-table replicas, step summaries, results, guides and the printed report; no bold or italic header anywhere.
Footnote markers: a superscript right after the text, with the code’s own marker — Specific Gravity⁴, 1,450², Round* — never a parenthesised (2), a bracketed [2] or a loose asterisk.
Steel: the beam and column detailed calculations speak AISC 360-22’s own symbols — Mp = Fy·Zx, λp and λr, φb·Mn and φv·Vn; at a support, Ru ≤ φ·Rn with Rn = Fyw·tw·(2.5k + lb) and Qf; for a column, Fn, Ag, Ae, φc·Pn, Pe1, B1 = Cm/(1 − αPr/Pe1) and Pr/Pc + (8/9)(Mrx/Mcx). A decimal exponent in a calculation line now sets whole instead of its first digit: (tw/tf)1.5 in the web crippling check, the LVL, LSL and PSL volume factor (12/d)0.136, and 20.000.75 in the seismic period.
Wood columns: the effective length speaks NDS 2024’s own symbols — ℓe = Ke × ℓ (3.7.1.2), and per axis ℓe1/d1 and ℓe2/d2 (3.7.1.3) with Figure 3F’s unbraced lengths ℓ1 and ℓ2 (1 = the wide face, strong axis; 2 = the narrow face, weak axis) — in Step 1, the Step 1 sketch, the Step 4 CP walk-through and the slenderness warnings. The per-axis rows no longer print a stray underscore after the subscript.
Wood columns, the rest of NDS 2024’s symbols: FcE = 0.822 Emin′/(ℓe/d)² as Eq. 3.7-1 prints it (the walk-through used to multiply by a KcE the equation does not carry), Fc′, fc and ft, and in the combined check fb1, Fb1′, FcE1, FbE = 1.20·Emin′/RB² and the unbraced length ℓu — in Steps 2, 4 and 5 and the detailed calculations. A round column’s slenderness note rounds d and b like every other length instead of printing sixteen digits.
Concrete and wind: the footing and retaining wall details write the gross area as Ag — qu = Pu/Ag, 0.005Ag at the column interface, 0.0018Ag for shrinkage and temperature steel — and the footing’s two-way shear speaks ACI 318-25’s own symbols: vu = Vu/(bo·d) ≤ φvc, vc from Table 22.6.5.2 with λs and αs, and γv·Msc·c/Jc for moment transfer. The wind enclosure check reads Ao < 0.01Ag and Aoi/Agi, as ASCE 7-22 §26.2 prints them.
Footings, the rest of the detail, in ACI 318-25’s symbols: one-way shear Vc = 2λ√f′c·bw·d and φVc; flexure at Lm with As, fy and As,min, and the rectangular footing’s γs band; bearing Bn with A1 = c1×c2 and A2; dowels As,dowel,min; development length ℓd with ψt, ψe, ψg and db; the eccentricities ex = |Muy|/Pu and ey = |Mux|/Pu; and the flexure limits εt ≥ εty + 0.003 with εcu and Es. The reinforcement warnings read As,min and As,max, and the fy limit message reads fy in the footing and the retaining wall alike. The Step 4 bearing table’s combination and stability lines now set their subscripts — Emh = Ω0·QE, |Mx|, |Vx| and |Vy| printed there with a raw underscore — and My, which several footing lines wrote bare beside Mx, now reads My in the loads summary, the stability lines, the views’ sidebar and the lateral-plane choice.
Retaining walls, the whole detail in ACI 318-25’s symbols: stem, heel, toe and key flexure with a = As·fy/(0.85·f′c·b), As,min and εt ≥ εty + 0.003 (β1 from Table 22.2.2.4.3); shear Vc = 2λ√f′c·bw·d against φVc; the heel’s dead load with the concrete density wc; development ℓd and ℓdh with ψt, ψe, ψs, ψg, ψr and ψcc, and the general equation’s (cb + Ktr)/db ≤ 2.5; a loaded stem’s slenderness k·ℓu/r and e = Mc/Pu; and the seismic stem demands Mu,E and Vu,E. Step 3 reads Steel fy and Straight development ℓd, the live reinforcement check’s warnings read As, As,min and As,max (its db used to print with a raw underscore), the reinforcement detail’s callouts set ℓdh, 12db and As as true subscripts, and the engine’s input messages (kh, SDS, pE) set theirs. Concrete and masonry strength read f′c and f′m here too — the Step 3 summary, the requirement lines, the ACI detail, the CMU stem’s TMS 402-22 lines (0.45 f′m, Em = 900 f′m, √f′m) and the reinforcement detail’s masonry callout.
Concrete and masonry strength read the way ACI 318-25 and TMS 402-22 print them: f′c and f′m, a prime with a subscript, in place of f'c and f'm — in the detailed calculations (√f′c, 0.85f′c, f′c/fy), the Step 2 field and summary, the f′c warnings and the SDC advisory, and the release notes.
Two build tests now hold the standard: one reads every string the source can render, the other opens every step of the sample project and reads what the user sees.
The surfaces that still spelled numbers their own way after the first pass now follow the same rule for their kind of quantity as the rest of the report: the geometry and pressure sketches, the wind load-case and minimum-load tables, the seismic story-force tables, the deflection and column detailed calculations, and the foundation and retaining wall design summaries. A base shear reads 21,288 lb everywhere instead of 21287.52 in one table and 21,288 lb in the line under it. Values and results are unchanged; only how they read.
Wind: Step 2 reads eave = 20 ft and B = 200 ft × L = 250 ft; the Step 10 load-case table, the Step 11 captions and the §27.1.5 / §28.3.6 minimum detail read whole pounds with separators (Fmin = 13,823 + 3,073 = 16,896 lb). Zone areas read in ft² with up to two decimals.
Seismic: the Step 7 and Step 8 story-force tables group their thousands (5,583 lb, 141,301 lb·ft).
Beam: the Step 7 deflection caption and the deflection detailed calculation read 0.311 in and 0.4 in instead of 0.3110 in and 0.4000 in.
Column: the axial detailed calculation reads D/C = fc/Fc′ with whole psi on both sides.
Foundation: the Step 4 sketch and annotation read e = 0.68 ft ≤ L/6 = 2 ft, Δq = 3,295 psf (51%), 24 × 24 in and q = 2,729 psf; the design summary follows the same rules.
Retaining wall: the sketch dimensions and pressures read 4.5 ft, 8.1 ft and q = 1,576 psf; the Design Verification table and the Step 4 capacities (51 in, 33 in) follow the same rules.
The printed report shows the same text as the screen, so the sample report is reprinted.
The summary under every collapsed step now reads at a glance. A strip of tiles carries the numbers the step exists to produce, with the governing one tinted. Below it, one panel holds the step's tables: grey labels, dark values, lighter notes, hairline rows and a blue stripe on the left. Before, every value, label and header was the same blue and each table had its own box. Nothing in any result changes.
A key-results strip above each step summary: Kd, exposure, Kzt, Ke and GCpi for wind Step 5; site class, SDS and SD1; risk category, Ie and SDC; Cs and V; each check's D/C with the largest tinted; a retaining wall's stability factors of safety.
One panel per step instead of a stack of separately boxed tables, divided by hairlines.
Three text roles: grey labels, dark values, and a lighter note after a value such as the definition of a hill height.
Cells that only say no change in a factor matrix, such as 1.0 or a dash, are dimmed so the factors that matter stand out.
Red keeps its meaning: a required value or a failing check is red in every cell. The printed report shows the same strip and text roles.
Every length, force, pressure, moment, period, acceleration and angle shown by a module now follows one rule for its kind of quantity: how many decimals, whether thousands get a separator, and how the unit is written. Before, a step could show 1000, 40,000 and 36.666 ft side by side. Values and results are unchanged; only how they read.
Lengths in ft read with up to two decimals and thousands separators: 60 ft, 36.67 ft, 1,000 ft. Inches keep up to three, so a deflection still reads 0.234 in.
Forces in lb read as whole numbers with separators (40,000 lb); kips keep up to two decimals.
Pressures, moments, periods, spectral accelerations (always at least two decimals: 1.00 g, 0.60 g, 0.667 g), angles and percentages each follow their own rule.
The printed report shows the same text as the screen, so the rule carries into every PDF.
Demand/capacity ratios and adjustment factors keep their existing rules.
The blue summary under every step is now a way back into the step. Click a row and the step opens, scrolls to the input the row reports and rings it for a moment. The amber advisories a field shows while you type, such as a code limit the module cannot decide for you, now also appear under that row of the summary, so a collapsed step shows them too. Nothing in any result changes.
Every parameter row of a step summary is clickable in every module. The pointer and a light wash on hover mark it; the printed report is unchanged.
A row whose input sits inside a collapsed group, such as Bearing length in the beam's Step 4, opens that group on the way.
A row the app cannot match to one field still opens its step and scrolls to the top of it.
Advisories under the value, in amber with a warning sign: footing f′c against the SDC minimum (both in Step 2 and in the Step 4 verdicts), steel column Lc/r above 200, wind mean roof height that is not low-rise per Section 26.2, seismic Site Class F and a system above its Table 12.2-1 height limit.
An advisory never turns a row red. Red stays for a value that is still required or a check that fails.
Step 2 of the seismic module now has a Default Site Conditions checkbox above Table 20.2-1, for a site whose soil properties are not known. Before, you had to pick a row of the table, even when the Hazard Tool was run with its default site class. The book icon beside it quotes Section 11.4.2.1. No result changes for a project that already has a site class.
Tick Default Site Conditions instead of picking a row. The table stays exactly as printed; picking a row clears the checkbox.
The summary and the printed report show the site class as Default, the most critical of Site Classes C, CD and D, never as Site Class D.
Default is not Site Class E or F, so it meets criterion 5 of the Section 12.8.1.3 maximum SDS option.
The seismic base shear guide's worked example now uses Default, the site class the Hazard Tool was run with. Its numbers do not change.
The worked example in the seismic base shear guide now uses one complete set of ground-motion values from the ASCE Hazard Tool, for Risk Category II and the default site class. Before, the example had no Ss, so its live example and Run this example showed a red Ss Required row. Every number in the guide was re-run through the seismic module. The module and its calculations are unchanged.
Ground motion: Ss = 2.24 g, S1 = 0.72 g, SMS = 2.36 g, SM1 = 1.65 g, SDS = 1.58 g, SD1 = 1.10 g, TL = 8 s. The house stays in Seismic Design Category D.
Base shear is now V = 19,714 lb (13,799 lb at 0.7E). The story forces, overturning moments and diaphragm forces moved with it, and the diaphragm minimum still governs both levels.
SDS is now above 1.0, so the guide explains the Section 12.8.1.3 option (SDS taken as 1.0, but not less than 70% of SDS) and what it would give for this house. The example leaves it off.
A free account now saves one project to the cloud as you work, so you can close the browser and open it again later, on any device. Before, cloud save came only with Pro. Pro still keeps every project and is still needed to print the report and for the plan-check verification link. Nothing in a calculation or a printed report changes.
Sign in with a free account and your project saves itself a moment after each change. Find it under Saved Projects, on this computer or any other. An email account needs its address verified first.
Starting a second project while the first is saved asks what to do: replace the saved project with the new work, or get Pro for unlimited projects. Until you choose, the new work is kept in this browser.
The free project has no plan-check verification link and does not print. When you upgrade, it becomes a regular Pro project with its own verification link.
Creating an account with an email address now signs you in straight away and takes you back to the page you were on. Before, it signed you out again until you had opened the verification email and signed in a second time. A verified email is now asked for only at checkout, when printing a report and for cloud save. Nothing in a calculation or a printed report changes.
After Create account you are signed in and back where you started: the calculator, a guide or the checkout you were about to start. The verification email is still sent, and its link brings you back to the same page.
Checkout asks for the verified email when it is missing, in place of the pay button, with an I've verified button and a Resend email button. Printing and cloud save, which come with Pro, need it too. Verifying in another tab is picked up when you come back to this one. Browsing, the guides and the free calculators never ask for it.
Signing in with an email that is not verified yet now works like any other sign-in. Until it is verified, the header (or its menu on a smaller screen) has a Verify email button.
The guides with a worked example now have a Run this example button. It opens the calculator with the guide's inputs already filled in, as a module you can edit. On each calculator page, Open the free calculator now opens that module. Before, both buttons opened an empty page. Nothing in a calculation or a printed report changes.
Nine guides carry the button: under the title, above the live example and at the end of the guide, and on wider screens in the page header too. The example opens as an ordinary module on your page, so every value can be changed and every check recomputes.
Open the free calculator on each calculator page now opens that module instead of an empty dashboard, and the wood beam designer links on the lumber section properties page open the wood beam module directly.
Work restored from your last visit stays on the page: the example or module is added after it, opened and scrolled into view. A calculator link for a module that is already on the page opens that module instead of adding a second one.
Work on the page without a cloud save, signed out or on the Free plan, used to be lost the moment you followed the sign-in link, opened the verification email or went to checkout in the same tab. It is now kept in this browser and comes back when you return, and signing in from checkout takes you back to the checkout you started. Nothing in a calculation or a printed report changes.
Without a cloud save, the modules on the page and every value in them are kept in this browser while you work. When you come back to an empty page, they are restored, with a Start fresh button beside the notice. Starting a new project or signing out clears them, a draft older than 30 days is dropped, and work that is still open in another tab stays in that tab.
Work kept while signed in to one account is never restored for another account in the same browser.
When you upgrade and come back to the page within two hours, the work is restored and saved to your projects.
Every plan in the upgrade dialog, Monthly and Annual as well as the one-week pass, now opens checkout in a new tab, so the page you were working on stays open.
Signing in or signing up from checkout or the pricing page now brings you back to the checkout you started, including through the email verification link, instead of an empty dashboard.
The column module and the seismic module had no drawing in Step 1: the column first appeared in the Step 6 model and the building in the Step 9 force diagrams. Each now draws a live elevation in Step 1 that appears on the first entry and corrects itself as the numbers land, the way every other module’s Step 1 sketch does. Nothing in a calculation or a printed report changes.
Column: an elevation beside the height box draws the member on the same frame as the Step 6 model, with the end restraints of the buckling mode picked in the table below. With per-axis end conditions or bracing between the ends it shows the strong (x-x) and weak (y-y) elevations side by side, with the brace points of each.
Seismic: an elevation under the story table draws one storey per row to scale, at the size of the Step 9 elevation, with the story heights on a dimension chain and each level’s height from the base beside it. It grows as rows are added.
A height, an end condition or a story not entered yet is drawn at a typical proportion and marked ? until its own value arrives. The stand-ins are drawing proportions only and never reach an input box, the engine or the report.
A note under the sketch says that the items marked ? are still to be entered.
The footing’s plan and sections and the retaining wall’s cross-section used to wait until every dimension was typed. They now draw as soon as the first one is, the way the beam, shear wall and wind sketches do. Nothing in a calculation or a printed report changes.
A dimension that has not been entered yet is drawn at a typical proportion and marked ? until its own value arrives, and the picture corrects itself with every keystroke.
The stand-in sizes are drawing proportions only. They never reach an input box, the engine or the report, and the finished sketch is the same as before.
A note under the sketch says that the values marked ? are still to be entered.
The Step 6 D/C table of the shear wall printed the load combination and a force in almost every cell, so the same uplift appeared up to five times on one row. Each column now names its combination once, in the table header, and each wall’s force appears once. No D/C changes.
A new Combination row under the column headings names the combination most walls are checked under in that column. A cell names its own combination only where it differs, for example an end post governed by another case than the rest.
The sheathing cell gives the wall’s own share of the line force, the same V the overturning check starts from. Before, every wall of a line showed the full line force.
The uplift T sits under the hold-down and the compression C under the end post. The end post tension and anchor bolt cells give the D/C alone.
The anchor rod coupler line reads as the coupler, its D/C and the verdict. Its tension is the hold-down’s T, and its allowable is in the Step 4 anchor rod table.
Two corrections found while the design summary was rebuilt. The heel shear was taken from whichever combination governed the heel moment, so a wall whose shear peaks under the other combination was checked against too low a shear. A wall with no heel, its property line at the heel, always failed bar development on heel bars it does not have. Both are fixed, and a design affected by either can show a different result.
Heel: the shear is the larger of 1.4D and 1.2D + 1.6L, each with its own loads, and the detailed calculation names the combination that governs it when the moment's differs. This matters mainly where an adjacent footing bears over the heel close to the stem.
Development: a wall with no heel has no heel bars to develop, so the check skips them, as it already skipped a missing toe.
Development: a toe shorter than its cover counts in the step's D/C, so a failing toe can no longer show a D/C below 1.
Step 4 of the retaining wall is now one table with five columns: the check, its governing load combination, the demand, the capacity, and the D/C ratio or factor of safety. Before, most rows gave only the ratio. Now a reviewer can read the two numbers behind every one. This change alters no result; the two heel corrections made alongside it are listed separately.
Stability rows set the overturning moment against the resisting moment, and the sliding force against the available resistance, with the factor of safety printed as FS 5.15 ≥ 1.5. Bearing sets qmax against qallow.
Flexure and shear are separate rows for the stem, heel, toe and shear key, each with its own governing combination, and the stem, heel and toe have seismic rows as well. The heel and toe shear rows name the combination that governs shear, which can differ from the one that governs the moment.
Bar development is one row per bar set, the required length against the length the geometry provides. Minimum steel is one row per area, the required area against the area provided.
A masonry stem shows its governing stress against the allowable stress, and its seismic minimum reinforcement as the bars required against the bars provided.
A failing row states its reason under the ratio, for example As < As,min, when the ratio alone does not explain the failure.
The seismic increment ΔPAE is a load, not a check, so it moved to the Step 2 summary beside the other seismic inputs.
With wind on the stem, the stem rows now name the wind term 1.0W in their combination. The numbers already included it.
Each detailed calculation card of a check with a load combination now shows it in full, including the identical pair the stem's demands come from (1.2D + 1.6H + 1.6L ≡ 0.9D + 1.6H), and the separate combinations of a heel's or toe's moment and shear where they differ.
The rule the retaining wall pressure figure got earlier today now applies to the beam load diagram and to the seismic story force arrows. The beam diagram drew point loads and distributed loads to one scale, comparing pounds with pounds per foot, so a column load could shrink a dead load to a line of arrowheads. A small story force on a tall building drew as a bare arrowhead. Results are unchanged.
Wood beam, Step 7: distributed loads (plf) and point loads (lb) are drawn to separate scales, and a note under the beam model says so when both appear.
Wood beam, Step 7: no distributed load is drawn shorter than one full arrow with room for a second, its shape kept. A load drawn visibly taller than its scale is named under the beam model, for example 0.5×D = 12.5 plf (n.t.s.). Shorter loads are drawn on top, so their arrows stay visible over a taller load on the same span.
Seismic, Step 9: no story force Fx or diaphragm force Fpx arrow has a shaft shorter than its head. A lengthened arrow says n.t.s. beside its value, and the caption explains it, including on a tall building whose level labels are hidden. A zero force draws no arrow.
The load combination views drew every block to one scale, set by the largest pressure in any combination, which is usually a factored bearing pressure. On a typical wall that left the earth triangle, the surcharge band and the seismic increment a few pixels wide, too thin to carry an arrow, so they read as lines. The applied loads now share a scale of their own, the bearing reaction and the passive resistance each have theirs, and no pressure block is drawn narrower than a minimum width that carries its arrows. Results are unchanged.
Earth pressure, groundwater, the surcharge (its push and its weight), an adjacent footing, the seismic increment and wind are drawn to one scale, so they still compare truthfully with each other, and switching between combinations never rescales them.
The soil bearing pressure, with its dashed qallow line, and the passive resistance are each drawn to their own scale. On screen, a note under the legend says which scales the selected view mixes.
A block narrower than the minimum width, one full arrow with room for a second, is drawn at that width. Where that visibly widens it, its label says so, for example K·q = 25 psf (n.t.s.). The value printed is always the exact one.
A widened bearing block is read against a qallow line drawn to the same scale, so a pressure under qallow always sits above the line.
A footing that stands farther behind the wall than the drawing reaches now shows its push on the wall. Before, the push dropped out of the figure together with the footing.
Every figure in every module now draws its labels at the same readable size (12.5 px, values at 14) whatever the window width. Before, a figure was sized for one desktop column, so a laptop window shrank its text with it: the wind sections lettered at about 6 px on a 1280 px screen, the footing and retaining wall at 7 to 8. The drawings now take their width from the column they are shown in and keep their text at full size; on a phone, a figure keeps its width and scrolls sideways inside its own box. On a laptop the load-case list of a visualization step sits above the figure instead of beside it, so the figure gets the full width.
Retaining wall: the lever-arm dimensions of the free-body figure no longer sit on the next dimension line, the soil is drawn as a tone without an outline in every view, and the pressure and free-body figures are solved for the column they are shown in.
Shear wall Step 7: a collector force value is placed clear of its own curve, a wall too narrow for its D/C values moves them to the dimension row instead of printing across its outline, and the base shear values drop below the hold-down and end-post arrows when they would run into them.
Footing: the bearing values sit below the sloped pressure edge and the allowable-bearing line, the rebar, critical-section, shear and plan labels move to a clear spot on small or slender footings (or under the figure when there is none), and the plan and sections sit two to a row only where both fit at full size.
Wind: the pressure and force figures keep 12.5 px values at any width; the drawing between the label margins widens or narrows with the column.
Seismic: the four Step 9 panels render at one fixed size and wrap to a second row on a laptop; the response spectrum sketch letters at full size.
Beam, joist and column: the span sketch and the support reaction values letter at full size on every screen.
Step 7 no longer repeats the design checks in its blue summary. Like the footing's and the retaining wall's visualization steps, it shows one Figures row above its free-body figures, which are unchanged. Step 6 (Design Verification) is the one place the checks read: its per-wall table keeps every D/C with the combination that governs it, now states the demand that combination produces under each one, and gives the chord compression C of each wall whose end post is not designed, beside the uplift T an undesigned hold-down already showed.
Step 7 is titled Step 7: Visualization; on screen and in the printed report it carries the Figures row and the figures.
Step 6: the end-post compression column is always present. A wall without a checked post reads Not designed with its C, or Required in red when its end post is switched on with the Substep 4C selections incomplete.
Step 6: each D/C cell reads the D/C, the governing combination and its demand — V for the line shear, T for a hold-down and each anchor location, C and T for an end post — so the printed report states the forces the old Step 7 table carried.
The note on what each D/C is taken against moved from Step 7 to the Basis & assumptions table of Step 6.
A blue summary row is now one line — the value with its unit, the governing combination, the demand over capacity and the verdict — so an engineer or plan checker sees at a glance what was designed and how hard it works. The explanations that used to crowd the rows (idealizations, code exceptions, how a value was formed) sit in a separate Basis & assumptions table: inside the expanded step on screen, and under the step's summary tables in the printed report, so nothing leaves the report.
Shear wall: Step 2 reads as flat tables — the story force of each direction, one row per line with W, E, Eh, D and Ev, and the gravity loads with the lines that share them on one row; Step 5 is one row per line (delivery, seismic share, collector force) with Fpx per direction; Step 7 reads Check | Governing combination | Demand | Capacity | D/C, the load-duration factor CD shown with the capacity it sets; Step 6 keeps its per-wall D/C table and states the anchor rods, the base transfer and the collector drag in one row each. The design scope, the moment arms, the end posts' allowables per load duration and the collector derivations are the basis under Steps 6 and 5.
Shear wall, on the sample project: the collapsed summaries went from 21,836 characters in 266 rows to 9,899 in 173, with every line, wall and check still present.
The sample report (PDF) is reprinted from this version, with each Basis & assumptions table printed under its step.
Beam and column: the load-duration row names the governing combination and its duration class only; the overstrength row states Ω0 and ρ. Footing: the overstrength row states Ω0 and ρ. Retaining wall: a check row is its demand over capacity and verdict; the check's full title stays on its detailed calculation card. Wind: the Figures row is one line.
The blue summary tables under each step now follow one rule in every module, on screen and in the printed report: a table fills its card up to the printed content width, the parameter column is a fixed one-line column, and the value column takes the rest and wraps. Labels such as “Footing thickness” and “Soil cover over toe” no longer break onto two lines, and the tables of a module share the same left and right edges.
A label is a short key. Where a label used to be a sentence — the retaining wall's check names, the wind topographic parameters, the shear wall collector rows — the rest of the sentence now sits in the value cell after the result, so nothing is lost.
A group heading inside a summary table spans the full width instead of sitting in the label column.
The shear wall and wood beam Step 7 check tables let a long result wrap instead of growing wider than the page, and the seismic Table 12.2-1 excerpt fits the printed page instead of being held wider than it.
The stem can now be a solid-grouted concrete masonry wall on the same concrete footing. Step 1 picks the material and the block (6, 8, 10 or 12 in nominal — the specified thickness, nominal less 3/8 in, is what the design reads); Step 3 takes f′m, the bar grade, the unit density, where the bar sits in the cell and the Seismic Design Category; the bars go in at a cell spacing. The stem is designed by TMS 402-22 Chapter 8 allowable stress design at service-level loads, every section read from the standard; the footing stays ACI 318-25.
Stem flexure on the cracked transformed section WITH the axial load (§8.3.2): masonry stress ≤ 0.45 f′m (§8.3.4.2.2), steel stress ≤ Fs by grade (§8.3.3.1), axial force ≤ Pa of Eq. 8-16/8-17 with the effective height of an unbraced cantilever, the compression width per bar of §5.1.2.1 — every ASCE 7-22 §2.4.1 combination the wall sees (D + H, with L, Lr or S, 0.6W, and 0.7E with ±Ev), printed stress by stress.
Stem shear fv = V/Anv against Fv = (Fvm + Fvs)·γg (§8.3.5, Eq. 8-19 to 8-23) with its M/(V·dv) cap; a stem that would need shear reinforcement fails rather than being silently reinforced.
A stepped CMU stem gets the same second critical section, with the bars that stop held to §6.1.10.1.3 (the greater of d and 12db past the point they are no longer required), §6.1.10.1.4 and §6.1.10.1.5; the wind reversal, the seismic combinations and the dowel lap in the masonry (Eq. 6-2, not less than 12 in) are all TMS 402-22's. The hook into the concrete footing and the footing mats remain ACI 318-25.
Reinforcement limits and the prescriptive minimums of Chapter 7 for a nonparticipating element by Seismic Design Category (§7.4.3.1, §7.4.4.1), the §6.1.5.1 masonry cover, the §6.1.3.2.3 bar-size limit, and the Quality Assurance Level of Table 3.1 — stated on the calculation.
Wall weight from ASCE 7-22 Table C3.1-1a (fully grouted, by unit density) or entered; the reinforcement detail draws the courses, the bar at its cell position and calls out the unit, f′m and the grade; the book-icon excerpts quote TMS 402/602-22.
Compared against a commercial retaining wall calculation of two CMU walls: the allowable moments agree to the decimal (1,812.8 / 3,403.2 / 3,132.6 / 6,167.2 ft-lb) once the same bar depth is entered.
Three independent reviews of the sheathing, material-rule, overturning, end-post, seismic and plan-model fixes shipped on 2026-10-01 found no blocker and a handful of gaps, now closed. The Step 3 summary states the ASD allowable unit shear for wind and for seismic, so the printed D/C reproduces by hand. The bolt holes through an end post are chosen, not defaulted, when no catalog hold-down sets them. The SABR stem-wall figure carries the catalog's 1¾ in. edge distance. A project saved before October reopens its old ρ = 1.0 default as a value to confirm in Seismic Design Category D to F. The SDS field says when a collector still needs it under Seismic Design Category B. The flexible-diaphragm condition is worded as ASCE 7-22 prints it: nonstructural topping of 1.5 in. or less. The Step 6 derivation prints vn at the precision the summary uses, names the ± pair, and labels the Ev term by its combination factor; an anchor with no uplift reads "No uplift" instead of a red dash.
Step 3 summary and print: the ASD allowable unit shear, vn / 2.0 for wind and vn / 2.8 for seismic, before each wall's aspect-ratio factor.
Substep 4C: the bolt holes through the post are a required choice unless a catalog hold-down follows 4A; the SABR stem-wall figure re-cropped from the 2026 catalog (1¾ in. min. at the Middle view).
Older saves: a ρ of 1.0 in Seismic Design Category D to F reads as unconfirmed until reviewed; the SDS field flags a collector's need for it in Category B; Step 1's flexible-diaphragm wording follows ASCE 7-22 §12.3.1.1.
Step 6: vn printed to one decimal in the derivation, the ± pair named for the governing line shear, the Ev term labelled with its factor, a red hold-down cell where the device does not fit its post, "No uplift" for an unloaded anchor; the collector force row states its level.
Step 6 — and the same table in the printed report — now opens with the design scope: segmented walls, one story, a flexible diaphragm that is not itself designed, no out-of-plane, deflection or orthogonal check, and every optional check that is switched off, naming the walls whose hold-down, hold-down anchorage or end post is not designed, so a blue summary never hides an unchecked chord. The story forces, the diaphragm force and its weight accept a typed thousands separator (3,000 was read as nothing). "Apply to all lines" and "Apply to all shear walls" refuse an empty source instead of wiping the other lines or walls, and their notice disappears once the source is edited again. Every field is bound to its label, the hold-down radios and the grid remove buttons are named, the combination rows of Step 6 open from anywhere on the row, and the reference blocks use the shared collapsible. The code is readable where it is used: the Seismic Design Category opens ASCE 7-22 §11.6, the overstrength factor opens Table 12.2-1 row 16 with footnote b, and the footnote-3 species opens NDS Table 12.3.3A.
Step 6 design-scope table (screen and print): model, stories, diaphragm, out-of-plane, deflection and drift, orthogonal directions, and each optional check that is off — per wall for hold-downs, anchorage and end posts; the collector and the base shear transfer per package.
Story W and E, Fpx and wpx take typed thousands separators; a negative gravity load and a zero or negative spacing are refused (the field stays empty); an Ω0 outside Table 12.2-1's 1–3 shows an error and is used by no reader — the collector engine, the Step 2 row and the printed table share one rule.
Apply to all: nothing is copied from a line or wall with nothing set; the notice is tied to what it copied; the expanded combination row closes when the line changes.
Accessible names on every control: labels bound to their fields, named hold-down radios and grid remove buttons; the whole combination row toggles; the reference blocks are the shared collapsible; Vn is a real subscript; the species row fits a phone.
Reference excerpts at the control: ASCE 7-22 §11.6 on the Seismic Design Category, Table 12.2-1 row 16 with footnotes a, b and d on Ω0, NDS 2024 Table 12.3.3A on the footnote-3 species.
Summary rows format whole pounds with thousands separators (18,110 lb).
A sweep of the wall-line free-body figure and the printed shear wall section. Point loads land on the wall they belong to when the collector check is off; T and C are drawn for the load direction shown, with the design envelope stated when it differs; lengths print clean; crowded labels step to a second row instead of overprinting; the figure keeps its scale on a phone. The report uses the screen's step titles, prints the guide of a step nobody has started, names every line, says which combinations govern, and a long step now breaks between its tables instead of moving whole to a fresh page. The Step 7 end-post row fails on slenderness as Step 6 does.
Figure: point loads on the figure's own axis (collector off); T/C for the drawn direction plus the envelope in the caption; per-wall Ev in plf; point-load legend by carrying wall; clean lengths; placed dimension row; narrow-pier readouts on that row; phone-width scrolling instead of 5 px type.
Print: screen titles; guides for untouched steps; every line named; the plan for one-line jobs; X-then-Y order; governing combinations named; a long step may break between its tables (all modules).
Verdicts: the Step 7 end-post compression row fails on ℓe/d > 50; no 'governs end-post compression' without a designed post; h/b at the limit is not over it.
The Step 1 elevation places opening and offset dimensions with the wall captions, and keeps a wall name clear of a grid bubble; the plan steps crowded ordinate labels to a second row.
Two notes on the Trus Joist rafter card — a creep note and a footnote (1) note — could never appear: TJ-4000's roof span tables carry no such markers (those belong to the floor tables). They are removed; the bearing-length note from the roof chapter stays. Spans and pass/fail are unchanged, and the module's step text now says PASS / FAIL as the screen does.
TJI roof span cells are the span alone; the rafter card shows only the TJ-4000 bearing-length note for the chosen depth chapter.
No result changes: the spans and the pass/fail against them are untouched.
Step text for the framing module reads ✓ PASS / ✗ FAIL like the module.
When wind or an earthquake pulls the column up but the footing's own weight keeps it on the soil, the soil pushes up less than the cantilever weighs, so part of that weight hangs on the cantilever and the top face goes into tension. That case was only named before; it is now checked. The hanging load is the cantilever's factored weight less the smallest soil pressure under the net load (exactly the pull spread over the footing area when the load is concentric; more on the light side of a moment), and a footing that lifts off hangs its whole weight, as before. A top mat is required for any such combination and is checked against its own minimum.
Column tension without lift-off: top-face moment = hanging load × Lm²/2 per unit width, with the hanging load = D-factored (footing + soil + slab) − q,min under the net load.
Without a top mat that combination fails flexure (∞ in the per-combination table, red Combination row, overall verdict FAIL); with one, the top mat is checked for the moment and for ACI 318-25 §7.6.1.1 in its own right.
The lift-off case uses the same model with q,min = 0 and the combination's own dead-load factor; the amber "Column tension" note is retired.
The sample footing has no tension combination; its results are unchanged.
Two fixes on the uplift path. The net-uplift test added the footing, soil and slab weight to a load total that already contained it, so the "Net uplift" warning appeared only once the column pulled harder than twice the footing's weight; it now fires as soon as the factored load on the soil turns upward. And the axial load handed to the ACI 318-25 checks was floored at zero, so a footing that lifts off never reached the top-reinforcement check; it does now. A missing top mat fails that combination, the per-combination table shows it, and the module's overall verdict includes every combination.
"Net uplift" warning: the stabilizing weight is counted once; the printed load is the true net upward load.
A combination that lifts the footing off reaches the top-reinforcement check (its own minimum per ACI 318-25 §7.6.1.1); without a top mat that combination fails flexure, shown as ∞ in the per-combination table, and the overall verdict fails with it.
Punching under net uplift reads as no downward demand even when a moment transfers; the footing's own hanging weight uses the entered concrete unit weight.
A combination that puts the column in tension without lifting the footing is named in an amber note; its top-face check is not performed yet.
Step text for the footing module matches the module (field names, step numbers, fy in psi, ASCE 7-22 §2.3/§2.4, masonry for walls only).
The sample footing has no uplift or tension combination; its results are unchanged.
The Heavy roof, ceiling and floor presets stacked layers no building has together (44.6, 33 and 51 psf). Each is now one heavy residential assembly from the same ASCE 7-22 Table C3.1-1a lines, checked against the AWC span-table dead loads (floor 10/20, ceiling 5/10, rafter 10/15/20 psf).
Heavy roof: cement tile, 5/8 in. plywood, 1/2 in. rigid insulation, 2 x 10 @ 16 in. = 24.75 psf.
Heavy ceiling: suspended metal lath and gypsum plaster, 2 x 8 @ 16 in., duct allowance = 20 psf.
Heavy floor: 3/4 in. subfloor, tile on a 1/2 in. mortar bed, 2 x 12 @ 16 in., 1/2 in. gypsum, duct allowance = 32.2 psf.
Light and Typical presets, and the wall presets, are unchanged; all fifteen totals are pinned by a test.
Two preset fixes. The Typical floor and ceiling assemblies gave different totals depending on how you reached them: on opening the module (or ticking Floor or Ceiling) a 4 psf mechanical duct allowance was included, but choosing Typical from the Light/Typical/Heavy selector left it out. The duct line now belongs to the Typical preset itself, so both paths agree (floor 19.2 psf, ceiling 13.2 psf). The Typical exterior wall stacked the 8 psf window line on top of the complete 2x6 wall line; glazing replaces wall area rather than adding to it, so Typical is now the 12 psf wall line alone and the window line stays available to add for glazed walls.
Typical floor and ceiling presets include the mechanical duct allowance; the module-open defaults are those presets exactly.
Typical exterior wall = 2 x 6 @ 16 in., 5/8 in. gypsum, insulated, 3/8 in. siding (12 psf); the window line is no longer stacked on it.
Sample project and sample report refreshed; preset totals are pinned by a test.
The Step 4 table of seismic force-resisting systems, and the summary that mirrors it, showed an extra column headed "hn (ft)" inside the Seismic Design Category block. It did not hold a height: it repeated the R value as a fraction. ASCE 7-22 Table 12.2-1 has no such column — the height limits are the B, C, D, E and F cells themselves. The column is gone, and a test pins the table to the book's columns.
Table 12.2-1 in Step 4 and its summary now read the ASCE 7 section, R, Ω0, Cd and the five SDC limit columns, as printed.
No design value changes: the checks never read that column.
A steel beam marked as supporting a discontinuous wall or frame (ASCE 7-22 Section 12.3.3.4) labelled its combinations Emh but solved them without the seismic load: the engine looked each load up under its entered type, E, while the Section 2.3.6 overstrength combinations name Emh, so the seismic point load found no term and dropped out. The combination read safer than the plain one. The steel path now does what the wood path does — the entered E is taken as QE and the term carries Ω0 × QE (Eq. 12.4-7).
Strength and deflection runs retype E to Emh and fold Ω0 into the term factor, so the printed combination, the diagrams and the ratios all carry the amplified force.
With the assertion off, or on without an Ω0, nothing changes: the ordinary E combinations run and the loads step shows the Ω0 row red until it is entered.
A verification test pins the peak moment at 1.2·MD + Ω0·ME against hand statics, and that a wind load on the same member keeps its own factor.
Entering 0 for Lcx or Lcy — the natural way to say the column is braced continuously about that axis — stopped the combined axial-and-bending step with an error. It now runs: with no buckling length in the plane of bending the Appendix 8 elastic buckling load is unbounded and the amplifier B1 is exactly 1.0 (AISC 360-22 Eq. A-8-3, A-8-5), which the step says in words.
Lcx = 0 with strong-axis bending, or Lcy = 0 with weak-axis bending, gives Pe1 → ∞ and B1 = 1.0; Lcy = 0 with strong-axis bending gives Lb = 0 and the full plastic moment for a compact shape.
Negative lengths are still refused, and the message names the 0 convention; a blank length still means the full height.
The seismic response coefficient card, the force diagrams and the base-shear guide carried ASCE 7-16's numbering for the Cs equations and cited the allowable-stress seismic combinations as Section 2.3.5. ASCE 7-22 inserted the multi-period Method 1 as Eq. (12.8-2), so the Method 2 coefficient is (12.8-3), its caps (12.8-4) and (12.8-5), its floors (12.8-6) and (12.8-7); the story forces are (12.8-12) and (12.8-13) and the story shears (12.8-14); the ASD seismic combinations are Section 2.4.5.
The Cs card labels each line with its 7-22 number and names the governing one; the vertical-distribution panels cite Eq. 12.8-12, 12.8-13 and 12.8-14.
The ASD seismic combinations are cited as Section 2.4.5 everywhere the module names them.
The worked base-shear guide uses the same numbers, and its regression test pins them.
The seismic step used to say that the design engine would apply Ω0 where the code requires it; nothing did. The footing now has an explicit option — design for the seismic load effects including overstrength (ASCE 7-22 Section 12.4.3) — with its own Ω0 from Table 12.2-1. On, the entered E is taken as QE and every seismic axial, moment and shear becomes Emh = Ω0·QE in Section 2.3.6 combinations 6 and 7 and Section 2.4.5 combinations 8, 9 and 10. The Design Summary's Demand and Capacity columns for flexure and development now print the pair each check actually compares.
Step 3 gains the overstrength toggle and Ω0 field beside the SDC, with the Section 12.4.3, 12.3.3.4 and 12.3.4.1 quotes; nothing turns it on by itself, and an assertion without its Ω0 holds the design with a red row.
The loads summary and the service-combination substitutions name the amplification (Emh = Ω0·QE); ρ is not entered, since Section 12.3.4.1 item 6 permits ρ = 1.0 wherever overstrength is required.
Design Summary: flexure prints Mu against φMn (kip-ft) in the governing direction and development prints the required ℓd against the length available from the critical section (in); until now those rows multiplied the required As and ℓd by their ratios and printed the products.
Units now appear beside every demand and capacity in the table.
At 9-1/2 in. the TJ-4000 floor and roof span tables list TJI 110, 210 and 230 only, but the pickers offered 360 and 560 there too, and a 9-1/2 in. TJI 560 produced no result at all. Each depth now offers exactly the series the tables carry, the way the 18–24 in. line already did for 22 and 24 in.
Floor joists and rafters: changing depth clears a series the new depth does not offer, so the row turns red rather than silently keeping — or swapping in — a product the table does not have.
The same rule now covers the 18–24 in. line, which used to swap a 360 or 560 for 560D at 22 and 24 in. without saying so.
A test ties every offered series at every depth to a row in both the floor and the roof data.
Two rows of ASCE 7-22 Table C3.1-1a were wrong in the app. The slate floor finish is printed "per mm thickness, 15" in the I-P table — a unit misprint carried from the SI edition, whose own row (0.028 kN/m² per mm) works out to 15 psf per inch — and the app followed the print, so a 1 in. (25 mm) slate finish came out at 375 psf instead of 15 psf. The grouted hollow-CMU rows — 48 to 16 in. o.c. grout spacing and full grout — had their four values on the 4, 6, 8 and 10 in. wythes instead of 6, 8, 10 and 12 in., so the table offered a fully grouted 4 in. wall at 55 psf and no 12 in. grouted wall at all.
Slate is read per inch of thickness, 15 psf, and its row says that the print reads per mm; the thickness prompt asks for inches.
Grouted CMU rows start at 6 in. and end at 12 in. for every density; only the No grout rows carry a 4 in. value — the transcription had dropped the blank 4 in. cell. A test pins both corrections against the printed table.
The blue book icon opens a code section quoted from the standard, a practice note or a guide. It no longer appears on step titles, which say what the step is on their own, and it no longer opens a box that only repeats a table's own number.
Every module's step headers are plain titles; the guidance they used to hold moved to the first group inside the step, beside the inputs it is about.
Table and card titles that already carry the code number (Table 1.5-1, Table 26.6-1, Table 26.10-1, the wind load cases) lost the icon that only restated it; the wind load-case titles now name their figure.
The seismic diaphragm-force card quotes ASCE 7-22 Section 12.10.1.1 in full from its own icon.
A stem that gets thinner above a height, carries lighter bars above it, or both, now has its own geometry: the step height, the thickness above it, and the pattern of bars that continue past it. ACI 318-25 §13.3.6.3 requires a stem of varied thickness to be investigated throughout its height, so the module now checks the base segment at the interface and the upper segment at the step, and holds the bars that stop at the step to the termination rules of §7.7.3.
Step 1 takes the step height and the thickness above it; Step 3 takes the continuing bar pattern (same size, every bar or every second or third). The earth face stays plane — the step is on the toe face — so the bars run straight through it.
A new calculation step collects every load above the step from the same derivations the base uses — earth, water, surcharge, the adjacent footing's strip-load push, wind on a projection or fence — and checks the upper section for flexure and shear, the axial–flexure interaction where the stem carries a load, and, where bars stop at the step, §7.7.3.3 (the greater of d and 12db past the point they are no longer required, found on the moment envelope) and §7.7.3.5 (the cutoff-in-tension conditions). The seismic combinations get the same check on the seismic envelope.
The stem's weight, the axial arm, the fence, the eccentricity limit and the slenderness magnifier all follow the stepped section; the figures draw the notch and the Step 1 sketch dimensions it; the reinforcement detail calls out both patterns and the step.
The expanded calculation's result column now reads each row's title, so the FS and pressure rows stay right on walls whose numbering shifts.
A fence, screen or guardrail standing on the stem top now has its own height, wind and weight. Until now the only way to model one was to raise the stem, which turned a 42 in guardrail into 3.5 ft of concrete — resisting weight that is not there — and tied the wind input to that fake projection.
Step 1 takes the fence height; Step 2 takes the net wind pressure over it and its weight per foot (0 for an open rail). The wind acts at the fence mid-height above the whole stem, at 1.0W in the strength checks and 0.6W in the stability checks, in both directions — the reversal check carries it with any stem projection's wind.
The fence adds no stem self-weight; its own weight, where entered, is permanent weight that resists. It stays out of the stem's axial interaction (conservative for a light screen; a heavy one is an axial load on the stem).
The figures draw the fence as a post on the stem with its own wind block; the Step 1 sketch dimensions it. The sliding step now itemises the 0.6W share of wind that it used to fold into the earth thrust's line.
The applied-loads legend beside the figure now names the wind it draws.
A house or garage footing standing in the backfill now has its own input. Its push on the wall is the elastic strip-load (Boussinesq) solution — concentrated near the top of the stem and tailing off with depth, nothing like a uniform surcharge — added to the soil load as H in every check, doubled where the wall is designed for at-rest pressure, and drawn in Step 5 on its own plane.
Step 2 gains an Adjacent footing group: load per foot of wall, width, distance to the centreline, and bearing depth. The calculation prints the closed-form resultant and its arm, with σx at five depths so the number can be reproduced by hand.
The push enters overturning, sliding, service and strength bearing, the stem, and every seismic combination as H (IBC 2024 §1610.1; ASCE 7-22 §3.2.1, §2.2, C2.3.1). Where part of the footing bears over the heel, that weight lands on the heel as D or L per your choice.
A footing on the stem itself, below the top of the wall's footing, or on a sloped backfill is refused with a message rather than approximated.
A strength combination whose factored resultant falls outside the footing now says exactly that, instead of calling the wall unstable when the service-level overturning check passes.
Where ASCE 7-22 Figure 27.3-1 lists two windward roof Cp values for the roof slope, the directional procedure now designs for both conditions (Note 3), keeps the one that governs the combined wall-plus-roof shear, and applies the Note 6 walls-only floor.
Each listed Cp becomes its own roof-shear condition. The detailed calculation prints one line per condition with the numbers substituted, then the pick; the Step 11 force view reads the governing Cp off the row.
Note 6 is applied as a floor on the combined shear from walls and roof.
Step 10 carries a verbatim excerpt of Figure 27.3-1 Notes 3 and 6.
The Chapter 27 worked example, the sample project and the sample report were re-issued with the new governing shear.
A lateral load on a wood or steel column can be assigned to the strong or the weak axis, and the beam-stability factor CL is computed from an entered unbraced length of the compression edge instead of an assumed braced edge.
Weak-axis (flatwise) bending per NDS 2024: Fb2′ with the flat-use factor, CL = 1.0 per 3.3.3.1, and FcE2 on the weak-axis slenderness. Steel follows AISC 360-22 F6 for W-shapes and F7 for rectangular HSS.
Strong-axis bending with d > b asks for ℓu. The effective length ℓe follows Table 3.3.3, RB is limited to 50 (3.3.3.7), and FbE and Eq. 3.3-6 are evaluated per load combination.
Older saved projects reopen with ℓu = 0, the braced edge the module always assumed, and say so. A load created now starts blank and is required.
The column worked example gained a section on which axis the wind bends and when CL matters.
Tension development length can follow the general equation, Eq. (25.4.2.4a), with the wall's own cb, and the depth of toe soil a geotechnical report says to disregard can be read as excavated or as left in place.
Step 3 choice: the simplified table (default) or the general equation, applied to the dowel lap, the heel and toe mats and the key dowels. The hook length ldh is unchanged.
Step 2 choice once a disregarded depth is entered: excavated (default) or in place, which keeps the passive-pressure origin at the toe surface and the key under its full overburden.
The summary row and the sliding step name the reading and print both numbers; the diagrams draw the chosen band.
Propagated to the retaining wall guide, the sample project and the sample report.
The module now runs seven steps. Hold-downs, anchor bolts and end posts (Step 4) and the collector (Step 5) can each be switched off for the building, with per-wall 4A, 4B and 4C switches, and the collector force takes the largest of the three overstrength cases instead of case (a) alone.
Fpx is built from its inputs by Eq. (12.10-1), with the Eq. (12.10-2) floor and the Eq. (12.10-3) cap applied by the module, which says which governs.
Switched-off steps are left out of the printed report. Step numbers never shift, and older saves reopen with what they designed.
The Step 5 collector detail is a numbered sheet with every provision quoted verbatim.
Every sketch and force diagram in every module draws each load case in the same colour, from one shared palette, so a dead load, a live load, a wind load and a seismic load look the same in the beam, the column, the shear wall and the retaining wall.
Reactions and resisting forces keep their own colour, distinct from every applied load.
The video library puts each of the 17 tutorials and narrated worked examples on its own page, with chapters, the questions it answers, related guides and a full transcript.
Module pages, guide pages and the home page describe each video with the same facts and link its watch page.
Captions now load on the guide pages and in the in-app tutorial dialog.
A six-part audit of the shear wall module against SDPWS 2021, NDS 2024 and ASCE 7-22, with the inputs reorganised into building, line and wall scopes.
Table 4.3A row data is pinned to the printed table. Step 3 picks a row and a nail spacing, and a footnote keeps a saved uncheck.
Table 4.3.3 aspect-ratio limits: an over-limit wall is not a shear wall. Material rule sets for wood structural panels, fiberboard and particleboard; the §4.3.7.3 and §4.3.7.4 seismic permission needs the Seismic Design Category.
Chord tension and compression are taken over beff (Eq. 4.3-7) with the hold-down centreline and the chord width. End posts bear on the plate's Fc⊥, with the plate species now a required input.
SDS is required except in SDC B and ρ has no default. Collector forces follow §12.10.2.1, with the §12.3.3.5 increase where a Type 2 corner is detected in the footprint.
The plan refuses notched lines, stranded legs, coincident grids and overlapping walls, and checks open-front structures per §4.2.6.1.
Assignment scopes: story forces, ρ, SDS and SDC per building; loads, collector and sheathing per line; hold-down, anchors and end posts per wall.
Across Sep 27 to 30, every module's collapsed summary became a table with its header shown once: blue rows carry values, red rows carry the code pointer for a value still required, and no code numbers appear in the blue rows.
The shear wall summaries and the report carry every line of the plan.
Sketch line weights no longer depend on the building's dimensions.
An audit of all 149 numeric inputs: a 0 the code placed in a box renders blank and only a value you typed shows. Every control primitive now takes its height, frame, focus ring and motion from the design tokens, so the app's fields, selects and buttons move together.
Blank-means-zero boxes say so with a 0 placeholder.
Nothing moved on screen: a before-and-after capture of 1,248 controls on the dashboard shows no style or size differences.
Glulam Table 5A offers Western Species and Southern Pine; the 28F-2.1E and 30F-2.1E combinations exist in Southern Pine only. Construction, Standard and Utility grades are limited to the widths Tables 4A and 4B tabulate, and both engines refuse a member outside them instead of designing on the narrow values.
A category change leaves species, grade and size unselected; a glulam species change clears a size from the other table.
PSL sizes are filtered by grade like LVL and LSL.
The materials cascade is one shared file both wizards call, so beam and column cannot disagree about a species or grade.
Each adjusted property in the beam and column Step 4 matrix carries the CD of the load combination governing its own check, and names that combination. In the footing module the 3000 psi minimum for SDC D–F is now an amber advisory that states the ACI 318-25 Table 19.2.1.1 residential exception.
Beam: Fb takes the flexure-governing row and Fv the shear-governing row. Column: Fc takes the axial-governing row and Fb the combined M + P row when a lateral load makes it a beam-column.
The expanded CD table gains a Governs column and reads the CD the engine checked each row at.
Footing Step 4 follows the biaxial and §12.13.4 options the moment they change; below 2500 psi the general minimum still warns red.
The footing Step 1 sketch draws both sections, in the Step 5 layout.
Found a change this page does not list, or a result that moved without one? Let us know.
