Chapter

1
PADDS Essentials
PADDS is a windowed CAD environment providing tools for rapid drawing and detailing reinforced concrete with a minimum of effort. Many tedious tasks, eg calculating reinforcement bar cutting lengths and totalling masses, are handled for you by PADDS, eliminating many repetitive tasks and generally improving accuracy and productivity. PADDS provides all the necessary drawing tools with which concrete and other details can be drawn. Then, by using PADDS comprehensive collection of detailing functions, reinforcement can be drawn to scale and scheduled automatically. PADDS drawing file translation routines enable you to open foreign drawings created in other CAD systems. Unneeded information can be filtered out and the drawing set up in a few easy steps to take advantage of PADDS advanced drawing and detailing features. This chapter introduces the following principles: The PADDS environment Choosing commands Using dialogue boxes

Using windows

The PADDS environment

This section briefly describes the procedure to start a PADDS working session and the elements of the PADDS detailing environment.

Starting PADDS
PADDS is launched from the PROKON Calcpad by clicking its icon found under the CAD & Detailing tab. The main PADDS drawing screen will appear and an empty drawing area is displayed. The main menu bar is found at the top of the screen. The drawing screen is surrounded by four button bars, with a command line at the bottom of the screen and a status bar below that. The commands in the menu and button bars become live when an existing drawing is opened or a new drawing created.

Button bars Main menu

Command line

Status bar

Selecting commands
Drawing commands and other functions can be selected with the mouse or keyboard in many ways: The menus provide easy access to all commands. The button bars can be customized to include any of the menu commands. Clicking a button executes the associated menu command. Menu commands can be assigned to the keyboard function keys. Abbreviated forms of the menu commands can be entered in the command line. Ease of use, speed and ultimately personal preference, will decide the best way for you to select commands.

Disabled commands
If certain system parameters dictate it, some menu commands or buttons will be disabled and displayed in a subdued grey colour. Selecting an inactive menu command or button will have no effect. The following are examples of situations where commands are disabled: If no drawing has been opened, all commands except File Open and a few other system commands, are disabled. If only one window is open, the Window Tile and Window Cascade commands are disabled. If no block is selected, then the Block commands are disabled.

Customizing the button bars

Since the contents and position of the button bars are user-programmable, you can tailor them to your own taste. Button bars can, for example, be set up to display menu commands used most often or to display complete menus, eg all reinforcement detailing commands. Refer to Chapter 11 for detail on customizing the button bars.

Customizing the function keys

The assignment of function keys F1, F3 and F10 are fixed, eg F3 repeats the last command. Typical assignments for the other function keys include those drawing commands used most often. Refer to Chapter 11 for detail on customizing the function keys.

Function key behaviour while editing bending schedules

The function key assignments are only available while editing drawings and are inactive when bending schedules is being edited. In such a case, the F10 key will always access the menu bar.

Setting points
Normally some points are set during the execution of a command. Points can however also be set before selecting a command. Depending on the commands behaviour when ortho mode is enabled, the results may be identical or vastly different.

Ortho mode
Select Set Ortho mode from the menu to enable (or disable) ortho mode. This mode forces the next point to be set orthogonally from the last point. Different commands behave differently with ortho mode enabled, some selectively disabling ortho mode during execution, eg the Horizontal dimension and Bar commands. Refer to Chapter 3 for detail on presetting points and ortho mode.

Recurring commands
Commands generally require a fixed number of parameters, eg two points to construct a rectangle using the Box command. Some commands have a recurring behaviour and keep on processing parameters until cancelled, eg the Line command, which can keeps on drawing additional line segments until cancelled by escaping.

Terminating commands
Any command, whether recurring or not, can be interrupted during execution as follows: By escaping i.e. press Escape or double click on the right button of the mouse. Recurring commands are stopped without deleting drawn entities. In the case of the Line command, for example, the line segments drawn before escaping are retained. Clicking outside the drawing area. The drawing area is defined by the total area of the one or more windows containing the active drawing. Executing another command. It is therefore not necessary to first press Escape before selecting a new command.

Note: To allow zooming and scrolling during a drawing commands execution, the zoom commands do not terminate the current command.

The result of interrupting a command depends on the nature of the command: Interrupting a recurring command, eg the Line command, stops the prompting for additional points and executes the command according to the parameters already given. Normally, interrupting a non-recurring command will completely cancel it and discard all parameters defined. In certain cases of non-recurring commands, parameters already given are not discarded and the command is only partly executed. Escaping the Caption command, for example, at the prompt for the caption text, draws the leader arrow without any text.

Repeating the last command

After its termination, the last command can be repeated by pressing F3 or, in the case of a threebutton mouse, clicking the right mouse button.

Working with multiple windows

PADDS allows more than one drawing to be open at a time to allow drawing entities to be copied from one drawing to another. One or more additional windows can also be opened to display different views of the same drawing. One drawing may therefore be open in two or more windows. One bending schedule can be open for every open drawing, in which rebars can be scheduled. The bending schedule can be viewed on the left of the screen next to the drawing or hidden, using the Window/Show or Hide Bending Schedule option on the menu.

The active window

If more than one window is open, the one lying in front is called the active window. Editing can only be done in the active window.

Tiling and cascading windows

Windows can easily be manipulated using the mouse and the commands on the Window menu. A

few options are available to arrange multiple windows: Cascading windows : The Cascade windows command causes all the windows to overlap so that each title bar is visible. Tiling windows : The Tile windows and Tile windows horizontally commands arrange the windows in smaller sizes to fit next to each other. With the Tile windows and Tile windows horizontally commands preference is given to maximum window height and width respectively.

Zooming and scrolling

The display in the active drawing can be manipulated in several ways to display desired information. You may choose to zoom into part of a drawing to enlarge a detail, zoom out to display larger areas of the drawing or to scroll to adjacent parts of the drawing.

Zooming a drawing
The following functions are available to zoom the drawing in the active window: Zoom all : Zoom the drawing to display the whole sheet of paper being drawn on. Entities drawn in regions off the paper might not be displayed. Zoom extents : Zoom to fit all entities on the screen. The paper size is not considered when calculating the drawing extents. Empty parts of the paper might therefore not be displayed. Zoom window : Zoom in by indicating the new borders of the active window. Zoom in : Enlarge the display by a factor 1.5 using the last point set, or the midpoint of the current view if no points have been set, as the midpoint of the new view. Zoom out : Reduce the display by a factor 1.5. The last point set or, if no points have been set, the midpoint of the current view is used as the midpoint of the new view. Zoom factor : Zoom in or out by a specified factor. A zoom factor greater than unity zooms in and a factor less than unity zooms out. Zoom last : Restores the display to the view before the execution of the last zoom command. Zoom store : Store the current window size, position and zoom settings. Zoom recall : Recalls the stored zoom settings. Zoom pan : Click and drag the mouse to scroll the display. Similar results can be obtained by using the scroll bars.

Note: Drawings can be zoomed and scrolled transparently without interrupting executing drawing commands.

Using Help
The About PADDS command gives the details and version of PADDS being used. To find help on a topic use the Contents command. You can then either select one of the listed topics or search for the specific topic required. The Request support command allows you to contact Prokon directly with your query and attach the files demonstrating the problem or query. The company account code, program used and the version thereof will be automatically added to the request form. Select the priority rating, and files to be sent with the query and give a short, but detailed description of the problem. Click on Submit request to submit it directly to PROKON.