SkyCiv has built out a range of features that make the modelling process extremely and fast and easy. One of these great set of mouse click functions, that once used to, can allow users to mock up a model with a few clicks.
There are a range of tools that you can choose from. These can be accessed by clicking the pen icon to launch the following great tools:
Click the pen icon to access the grid and snapping options
Grid
Grids can be toggled on to help provide reference to your structure and model using a mouse click (in combination with draw tool).
There are a number of controls for the user defined grid:
Plane Selector - The grids have been simplified into these three toggle buttons (XY, XZ and YZ). Click that plane to toggle it on and off.
Start Position - The position in 3D space at which the grid will start at. Use this to pan/move the grid to a position that makes sense for you to work from. In the right (and above) example, the grid starts from the reference point (0,0,-10).
Grid Size - The size of each small square of the grid. In the right (and above) example, the each small square is 0.5m x 0.5m.
Number of Levels - How many times would you like to replicate the grid up? In the right (and above) example there is only 1 level.
Level Height - By what distance would you like to replicate the grid up? In the right (and above) example there is only 1 level, so level height is not applied.
With the draw tool toggled on, users can hover over any point on the grid and plot a node. If the setting Show Coordinates under Snap Options is ticked on, it will show the coordinates of that grid position, so you know where the node will be positioned.
Snapping
Snapping is an easy way to plot nodes using the mouse. Simply hover (or click) a node to define this node as being the reference point. Then move your cursor along the global X,Y or Z axis and it will snap to that axis - shown as a dotted red, green or blue line depending on what axis is being snapped. The snapping tool might also pickup a secondary axis, such as an alignment of another node. To disable that refeence node, simply click somewhere that is not snapped, or hit Esc.
Here is an example of the pen tool snapping to the global Z axis, with reference to node 2. It is also picking up a secondary axis of node 5's Z coordinate:
Hover or click a node, this will become your Reference Node, from here you can use the Snap/Grid to plot a node:
With the Connect Member tickbox selected, you can both drop a node and connect the nodes as a member:
Snapping will also detect a secondary axis. For instance if you're travelling across the X axis of a node, it might pick up other nodes with that same X axis.
The Length box will auto display the length of the distance from the reference node (and hence the length of the member). At any point you can enter a length and hit Enter, or click, to apply that member length.
Enter a length and click the (lock) icon to lock the length. Now you can create members fixed at this length.
Snap to a member's midpoint
The snapping options
Snap On - Toggles the snapping on and off
Show Distance Label - if this option is ticked on it will show the distance of the proposed node from the point of reference (in most cases the length of the proposed member)
Show Coordinates - Show the coordinates of the proposed snap node.
Snap Size - What increments would you like the snapping to occur from the point of reference.
Snap Size Control
The snap size attribute will directly modify the size of the structure that is being displayed in order to make it easier for the user to snap to the correct increments. For instance, a small snap of 5 mm will shrink the model down to a size that makes this easy to work with. This can be controlled at anytime and is useful to control the following behaviour:
