1 of 9 / 31-07-2012 Getting Started What am I building?

When you are finished working through this tutorial, your model will look similar to the following:

Continue to the first activity.

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Create a Project
The FrameWorks Plus Manager Utilities > Create > Project command creates FrameWorks Plus projects. A FrameWorks Plus project consists of several directories and files. To organize and manage these files, FrameWorks Plus uses a directory structure to store the various file types. A project can contain one or several individual models. 1. Click Start > Programs > FrameWorks Plus > FrameWorks Plus. 2. In the FrameWorks Manager dialog box, change directories to c:\users. If you do not have a c:\users directory, or you want to put the project elsewhere on your computer, you can select any directory to which you have read and write access. Just remember where you put your project.

3. Click Utilities > Create > Project. 4. Type myproject for the Project name. Note FrameWorks Plus project names can be up to 14 characters long and contain the underscore (_) character. No other special characters are allowed in project names. 5. Click Create.

6. Click OK to acknowledge that the project was created. 7. Double-click myproject in the directories list to open the project. Here is a quick review of the project directory structure.

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3 of 9 / 31-07-2012 Projects and Seed Models \data - The data folder contains the project's config.dat file. The config.dat file contains the project's customized environment variable settings. The config.dat file is copied automatically from ..\fwplus\data (the product folder) when the project is created. For more information about the environment variables in the config.dat file, see Appendix A: Customizing FrameWorks Plus in the FrameWorks Plus Reference Guide. \drw - The drawing folder contains 3D design files used in drawing composition. Drawings can be composed in any 3D design file, including the FrameWorks Plus model file itself. If a separate drawing file is used, it should be stored in this subfolder. \esl - If special nonstandard steel or concrete sections are used on a project, they can be created and stored in a user section library. These user section libraries are stored in this subfolder. If you are creating arbitrary sections, the cell library file (ist.cel) is stored here also. The ist.cel file is copied from the ..\fwplus\esl folder to this project folder when the project is created. \frz - When saving frozen views to a separate design file, those design files are stored in this subfolder. This folder is also used to store files generated for the SmartPlant Review product and to store the interference envelope files generated for the project. \int - This is the interface subfolder where files used for interfacing FrameWorks Plus to other structural engineering products are stored. These interface files include input files for analysis packages such as GTSTRUDL and STAAD and the Common Structural Database (CSD) files. Additionally, FrameWorks Plus creates map files in this folder that are used in the analysis interface process. \mod - All structural model design and database files for the project are in this subfolder. \rpt - The report subfolder is used to store all reports created for models in the project. Continue to the next activity.

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Edit the config.dat File

When you open a model in myproject, FrameWorks Plus reads the config.dat in the project's data folder, which the software copied there from the ..\fwplus\data folder when you created the project. In this activity, we are going to edit the myproject's config.dat file to use project specific grade.dat and attributes.dat files. 1. Open Windows Explorer. 2. Copy grade.dat, attributes.dat, and all the .rsc files from ..\fwplus\data to the c:\users\myproject\data folder. The default installation location for FrameWorks Plus is c:\win32app\ingr. 3. Using Notepad, or another ASCII editor, open c:\users\myproject\data\config.dat. 4. Edit FW_DATA=$(PROD)DATA\ to read FW_DATA=c:\users\myproject\data\ 5. Save and exit the config.dat file. Now when you open a model in myproject, FrameWorks Plus reads the grade.dat and attributes.dat files in the ..\myproject\data folder instead of in the ..\fwplus\data folder. Continue to the next activity.

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Edit the attributes.dat File

FrameWorks reads the attributes.dat file for certain member attribute values that you can customize. In this activity, you are going to edit the project's attributes.dat file. 1. Open Windows Explorer. 2. Using Notepad, or another ASCII editor, open c:\users\myproject\data\attributes.dat. 3. Scroll down through the file until you find the Fabricator Name entries. 4. Change "ABC" to "Huntsville Steel". 5. Change "XYZ" to "Jones Steel". 6. Save and exit the attributes.dat file. 7. Right-click the attributes.dat file, and then select Properties. 8. Make attributes.dat read-only. 9. Click OK. Caution

If you plan to write a Steel Detailing Neutral File (SDNF) from a project, you must take administrative action to safe guard the attributes.dat file from unauthorized editing. FrameWorks Plus writes the code listed value (1, 2, 3, and so forth) of the attribute value to the SDNF, not the text string. Because the code listed values are written to the SDNF, you must send the attributes.dat file with the SDNF so that the receiving party can correctly interpret the SDNF. After the SDNF has been written, you cannot edit existing values in the attributes.dat file. The only edits to the attributes.dat file that would be okay would be to add values to a list.

Continue to the next activity.

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Create a Seed Model

Seed models provide a terrific and time saving way to ensure that all your models in the same project have the same basic settings and views. For the rest of this chapter, we will be defining a seed model. In our seed model we will:

Create the standard views we will be using to create the tutorial model. Define grids in those views. Define member and model settings.

Create standard load cases and load combinations. 1. In FrameWorks Plus Manager, browse to the myproject\mod folder. 2. Click Utilities > Create > Model. 3. Type seedmodel for the Model Name. Model names can be up to 10 characters long. 4. Select Meters for the Units. 5. Select kN for the Force Units. 6. Select MAISC for the Standard Section Table. 7. Select None for the User Section Table. 8. Leave Third Party Software set to STAAD and the Design Code set to AISCASD.

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7 of 9 / 31-07-2012 Projects and Seed Models 9. Click OK. FrameWorks Plus creates the model seedmodel. 10. Click OK to acknowledge the model was created. 11. Double-click the mod folder. 12. Double-click the seedmodel.mod file to open the seed model. Continue to the next activity.

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Create Three-Dimensional Views

There are three types of Model Views in FrameWorks Plus: Plan, Elevation, and 3D. In this activity, we will create a 3D isometric view and a 3D dimetric view. A 3D view is the most generic of the three view types and can be defined in any orientation, such as isometric, but can also be defined in an orthogonal orientation (top, south, and so forth). Members can be placed in a 3D view, but unlike plan and elevation views, there is no active depth or working plane associated with the view definition. Using a 3D view is sometimes necessary for structures with intricate bracing, such as transmission towers, or irregular structure geometry. Like the other views, you can define specific member display symbology for the 3D Model Views. The surface representation is frequently used in 3D views. Note The first view you create in a FrameWorks Plus model should always be a 3D Isometric view. The PDS and FrameWorks Plus batch propagation routines use the first 3D view defined in a FrameWorks Plus model to generate the propagated view. 1. Click View > Create.

2. Set View Type to 3D. 3. Set View Orientation to Standard ISO. 4. Type Default 3D Isometric View in the Description field. 5. Set Fitted View Border Widths Left/Right and Top/Bottom fields to 0:500:0.

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9 of 9 / 31-07-2012 Projects and Seed Models 6. Click Apply, and identify a MicroStation view. FrameWorks Plus creates a new view named Isometric. 7. Set View Orientation to Dimetric. 8. Type Default 3D Dimetric View in the Description field. 9. Click OK, and identify a MicroStation view. FrameWorks Plus creates a new view named 3D View. Continue to the next section. If you need to exit, click File > Save FWP Settings in the FrameWorks Plus command window and File > Save Settings in the MicroStation.

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