General Modeling Capabilities

As is the case with all COMOSYS modules the Formwork module too is general purpose in its scope.

You will feel the comfort of a general purpose CAD program whenever the shape of the structure is complicated but at the same time, you will not feel pulled down by any lack of macros to facilitate the modeling of the more commonly found shapes. In particular COMOSYS provides specialized commands for quickly modeling features and details which are very common in industrial type structures. Classical building structures are extremely easy to model and making revisions is a breeze.

Modeling of Formwork Elements

COMOSYS provides specialized commands for the modeling of commonly occurring elements like columns, beams, single walls, continuous walls, closed walls, slabs and stairs etc. The user is required to input very intuitive data like the level of the slab and its thickness instead of working with the general CAD modeling commands. Furthermore these basic elements can then be modified by creating openings in them as is the case with door and window openings or slab openings. Special features like channels in a slab, anchor bolt cut-outs, covers of sumps or other similar ditches or covers of openings leading into galleries, water stoppers etc. are all modeled extremely intuitively and within a a fairly complicated structure can be finalized within a very short time frame.

Furthermore all main types of foundations like simple footings, strip footings, raft foundations are modeled by simple mouse clicks and simple foundations can also be designed against given loads.

Secondary Concrete Modeling

2D drawings can only be extracted directly from a 3D model if everything one needs to see on the 2D drawing is in the 3D model as well. However, modeling every last bit of information in the model can be a tedious task. On the other hand if 2D drawings are manually modified then such modification needs to be redone every time any revision takes place. COMOSYS gives the user the ability to model secondary concrete like lean concrete, grout and even the earth around the concrete which needs to be shown on the drawings very easily. Even the slope given to slabs can be modeled directly without resorting to any tricks at the drawing stage.

Embedded Steel Modeling

One of the earliest requests which comes from the site is regarding the details of embedded steel. COMOSYS not only gives the user the chance to produce quality Formwork drawings but the embedded steel too can be modeled thereby eliminating the need for any manual additions to the drawings

The embedded steel options provided by COMOSYS allow the user to not only place most types of such elements but also create their own specialized types. Furthermore the user can create a library of embedded steel assemblies and then select from them in subsequent projects. In addition COMOSYS will also design the embedded steel for shear and tension thereby reducing chances of error in the design.

Generalized Anchor Bolt Modeling

Most types of anchor bolts can be modeled both individually and in the form of groups. A simple click on the screen and the anchor bolts appear in front of you. Once again the user has the option to create a library of such anchor bolts and then reuse them elsewhere.

Concrete and Formwork Material Take-Off

COMOSYS allows the user to create a report of how many cubic meters of concrete and how many square meters of formwork will be needed. This report can either be generated for the entire model or from pour to pour. With the help of such reports the user can quickly assess the material requirements and act accordingly.

Embedded Steel Drawings

COMOSYS automatically creates the shop drawings of standard embedded steel assemblies which have been modeled. All such assemblies are first numbered according to the user specified criteria and then drawn. Each assembly can be drawn on its own sheet or many may be combined in a large sheet, depending on the requirements.

Formwork Drawings

The main aim of 3D modeling is of course to extract 2D drawings from it. COMOSYS provides a unique feature in that in unions all concrete elements just before exporting them to the 2D drawings thereby providing a monolithic output. The user can also separate pours or separate types of elements so that they form unions with their respective groups. For instance prefabricated elements will not be united with each other or other cast in place elements. Similarly lean concrete elements will also be kept in a separate group. On the drawing side the user can take an sectional or plan or 3D view of the formwork and let COMOSYS automatically dimension it. With many simple applications this auto dimensioning is sufficient and with complicated shapes minor retouching will suffice.

COMOSYS provides a fully featured drawing environment whereby placing all types of dimensions, both linear and curved, level symbols, annotations, clouds and other drawing entities and the user does not need to finalize the drawing in any other CAD environment.

Surface Rebar-Tracer Technology

Concrete is known for its geometric complexity. While template based macros can go a long way in detailing many structures the fact remains that the real difficulties and hurdles lie in areas where the geometry is not so well defined. It is here that COMOSYS comes into its own and provides extremely flexible and intelligent rebar placing techniques which are unique to it. Using its revolutionary Rebar-Tracer technology the user can place rebars on an entire surface with one command. This technology breaks the surface into zones in both the major directions and places rebars in these zones which conform with each other perfectly. Most programs will make the user enter the rebars one placement at a time. Complicated surfaces with complicated boundaries and multiple holes in them result in tens of rebar placements with this number even crossing fifty placements at times. This means that COMOSYS can provide great rebar detailing speeds when detailing manually (i.e. not with the help of template macros).

Furthermore COMOSYS allows users to fully access any zone within the surface separately and change its parameters locally. Embedment length options are extremely intelligent and bars change length according to their diameters. They also Trace the concrete shape so all bars automatically stay within the formwork.

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Specific Template Macros

For typical concrete elements like beams, columns, slabs, walls, shear walls, simple and strip foundations, stairs, corbels, Wall footings, flares, tie beams, holes in slabs and walls etc., COMOSYS provides powerful commands that let you place rebars in such assemblies within seconds..

Automatic Numbering

In COMOSYS all elements (unless otherwise specified) are numbered automatically by the software. Same is the case with rebars. Depending on their marking attributes all the rebars in the model are numbered automatically. This eliminates any errors which may be introduced if the user is forced to choose a mark for a rebar. This rebar numbering can be common for the entire structure with rebars marks starting from 1 and moving up to whatever is the last rebar mark. If required; however, COMOSYS can also be directed to number each Assembly within itself. In this case the numbers will start from 1 for each assembly.

Operations on Surface Bars

Once through with the basic placement tens of modification options are available for any fi ne tuning which may be necessary. For instance usually the areas in slabs where the beams run need to be emptied of slab reinforcement as those areas will be filled with the reinforcement coming from the beams. Similarly sometimes a rebar needs to be pulled back a little or embedded into another object. Similarly rebars with the same mark sometimes need to be combined across zones just to create a cleaner drawing.

Template Rebar Drawings

These drawings are completely automated but are restricted in scope to typical assemblies like Beams, columns, single footings, walls and shear walls etc. So with a few clicks the user can get most of the drawings out of the way. All rebar annotations, dimensioning, material take-offs and general arrangement of the drawing is done by the software so it hardly takes a few minutes for the drawings to be ready.

General Rebar Drawings

Whenever the shape of the assembly is such that it does not lend itself to the automatic drawing creation utilities the user can still go ahead and produce the rebar drawings manually. Even manual drawing creation is almost automated. All the user needs to do is Show which views he wants. Annotating the rebars is done automatically by COMOSYS. Many different types of annotation capabilities are provided by COMOSYS. These include the typical plan type annotations, sectional annotations, range annotations (as typically used in stirrups) or spot annotations. With a single click the program intelligently calculates which rebar in the drawing needs to be annotated in which way and then goes ahead not only to annotate it but to also find a suitable place on the drawing for the annotation so that it does not clash with other elements. This feature is extremely beneficial since most programs make the user locate a suitable place for the annotation manually and this really slows down the drawing creation process significantly. What should have taken just a few minutes starts taking hours.

COMOSYS will allow the user to change the place of an annotation if such a change is necessary but this is only in rare cases. A majority of times the place found by the program will be more than acceptable. Showing a place for the material take off is all that is left and the drawing is completed.