Design freedom in the FRAMECAD system

The freedom does not come from the machine

It would be easy to say that the system gives freedom because the machine can do many things. That is only partly true — and it is not the important part.

The real reason is that the engineering is inside the design model. The designer does not have to choose from pre-calculated, catalogued cases: they draw the structure the building calls for, and the system checks it. That is very different from a kit logic, where the catalogue decides what may be built.

Everything else follows from this.

What this means in practice

Any geometry can be checked

If the architect designs a raking wall, a varying ridge height or an unusual truss layout, it is not a matter of “whether the system allows it”. The structure can be drawn and verified; complexity increases the design work, it does not limit feasibility. The same logic applies to trusses, which the machine cuts — so angles and layouts can be designed that would be disproportionately expensive to cut and weld by hand in hot-rolled steel.

The steel goes where the load is

The F-series auto-gauging system follows the steel thickness between 0.55 and 1.20 mm without changeover. The designer is therefore not forced to size the whole building to the most loaded member. More detail: auto-gauging.

Connections cost nothing extra

Every hole, cut-out, dimple and marking is part of the same machine pass. In welded steelwork each of these is separate workshop work and a separate cost item; here it is not. That is why connections can be designed that would be uneconomic elsewhere — the design decision is not closed off by manufacturing cost.

Native Eurocode

For Europe the software calculates to EN 1990, EN 1993-1-3 and EN 1998-1. This belongs to the freedom, because results do not have to be inferred back from a foreign standards system: the model is in the same system the Hungarian engineer works in anyway. In detail.

The data can leave the system

Machine program in CSV and XML, model in IFC. So the design work does not get stuck: it can be taken to another machine and another discipline’s environment. In detail.

Where the limits still are

Honestly: the freedom is not unlimited, and it is not limited where a brochure might suggest.

• The profile range is fixed. A given machine works within a given width and thickness range. What falls outside is not a design question but a machine question.
• Long spans have a boundary. The manufacturer states trusses up to 15 m clear span for the F325iT; beyond that another structural solution is needed, typically hot-rolled steel.
• The freedom has a price on the design side. With no catalogue, every structure has to be engineered. This system is not good because it needs less design work — it is good because the extra design work pays for itself in material and in the quality of the structure.
• The software is closed. There is a separate article on that: where the system ties you in.

The point

The question is not “does it fit the system”, but “has it been designed”. That is the difference between building from a catalogue and engineering — and it is why the designer’s work is worth more with this technology than elsewhere.

Sources

FRAMECAD Knowledge Hub (“About Steelwise steel framing software”, “Engineering codes supported in Steelwise”, “How to export files from Steelwise”, The F-Series Operating Manual) and the F325iT and F450iT product pages, retrieved in September 2026. The design conclusions reflect our own engineering practice.