With the "Info About Object..." function available in the menu under "Tools", you can display all the information about an object by placing the cursor on it in the graphical window.
For a quick overview of the cross‑sections used, you can show the members in color sorted by cross‑section. Use the right mouse button in the work window to select "Colors in Graphics According to" → "Cross -Sections" from the shortcut menu. In the current program versions, you can use a panel with an editable color scale for this.
Supports can be copied and moved using drag & drop, even if the "Move/Copy" function is not available in the shortcut menu. This applies to all kinds of supports: nodal supports, line supports, and surface supports. These can easily be assigned to further nodes, lines, or surfaces.
The display size of the load vectors can be adjusted quickly in the load shortcut menu: Right-click the load icon and select "Increase Display Size" or "Reduce Display Size" from the menu.
RFEM 5 provides the option to define a smoothing area in the "Results" → "New Average Region" menu. You can choose a rectangular, circular, or elliptical shape. With this tool you can, for example, "smooth" singularities due to nodal loads in a desired averaged region.
Generally, overlapping members in the model are not desired. To prevent RFEM from deleting an already defined member if another member is placed upon it, select "Allow Double Members" on the "Edit" menu.
To determine the distance between two nodes or the angle between two objects without using the dimensioning function, you can simply use the "Measure" option on the "Tools" menu. Here, you can also choose between various measure functions.
The final results of the designs of members and sets of members in the RF‑/STEEL EC3 add-on module can be displayed graphically in the work window of RFEM and RSTAB. By selecting the corresponding design case in the load case menu, the results contained in it are displayed.
RFEM, RSTAB, and SHAPE-THIN are localized in eleven languages. All languages are available at no extra charge. The language of the program interface can be defined in the menu "Options" → "Program Options".
The Time Course Monitor displays the results of a time history analysis from RF‑/DYNAM Pro – Forced Vibrations. The graphic can be adjusted in the settings. This can be reached by right-clicking in the shortcut menu. For example, you can activate or deactivate the grid in the graphic. These changes are transferred to the printout report when you print.
You can move and copy objects directly in the display window in order to work more efficiently. If this feature is not desired by the user, you can simply disable it. To do this, right‑click in the display window and select the "Enable Drag & Drop" entry in the shortcut menu.
In addition to the options of Project Navigator - Display, you can modify the visibility of structures (members, surfaces, and so on) and guide objects (dimensions, comments, guidelines, and so on) in the menu and toolbar using the shortcut menus.
You may already be familiar with the "Center of Gravity and Info" function, which can be accessed using the shortcut menu of any element. If you want to display this information on several elements consecutively, you have to close the dialog box and open the shortcut menu of the next element over and over again.
Generally, RFEM automatically detects all objects lying on a surface that are not used for surface definition. Objects integrated into surfaces can be selected using the "Select Integrated Objects" option in the shortcut menu of the relevant surface in Project Navigator. This way, you can easily find in the graphics which objects have already been integrated into a surface, for example.
The geometry data of an RFEM model are currently managed in 29 tables, so not all of the tabs are displayed at once. To open a particular table, we recommend using the navigation menu that you can open by right-clicking on any tab. A shortcut menu appears, where you can quickly access the desired input table.
The RFEM or RSTAB user interface can be customized. The previous posts describe how to create toolbars and menu bars. Thus, this post focuses on the load case drop‑down list. This drop‑down list allows you to switch between individual load cases, combinations, and module cases.
The result window of the cross-section properties can be adjusted individually using the [Filter] button in the table menu bar. You can then activate or deactivate the individual cross-section parameters in the dialog box.
RFEM facilitates modeling by the automatic integration of objects into surfaces. However, it is impossible to integrate the objects automatically in the case of curved surfaces. For manual integration, select the relevant surfaces and click the "Edit Surfaces" option in the shortcut menu; then, in the "Integrated" tab, you can integrate the relevant objects using the "Select" function. This way, you can avoid error messages caused by non‑integrated objects when starting the calculation.
You can quickly copy nodal loads to other nodes using the "Copy Nodal Load" option in the shortcut menu. To do this, select the nodal loads to be copied first, then click the "Copy Nodal Load" option in the shortcut menu. A "Multiple Selection" window appears where you can enter the relevant nodes to which the nodal load is to be copied. After clicking "OK" to close the window, the nodal load is copied.
In order to show various results (deformations, internal forces) in multiple windows quickly, you can use the "Arrange Result Windows" function ("Results" menu). A dialog box appears where you can select the relevant results to be displayed.
You can select an object in RFEM or RSTAB by simply clicking it. However, only the last object clicked will stay selected. In order to select several objects at a time, press the Control key while clicking. Since this procedure is not always possible, you can use the "Add to Selection" function in the toolbar or in the "Edit" → "Select" menu.
The RF‑FORM‑FINDING add‑on module can be activated in the "Edit Model - General Data" window, "Options" tab. By activating the module, a new RF‑FORM‑FINDING load case is created and an additional menu appears in the main program, allowing for the definition of prestress conditions for membrane and cable elements.
With the introduction of OSG graphics for the representation of design reinforcement in RF‑CONCRETE Members and CONCRETE, you can also select the reinforcement position directly in the graphic. Right-click the mouse to open the context menu where you can edit, copy, or delete the selected reinforcement position.