Steelwise: detailing and engineering
What Steelwise is
Section titled “What Steelwise is”Steelwise is FRAMECAD’s current design software: in the manufacturer’s own description a desktop CAD application for detailing light gauge cold-formed steel framing for roll-forming production. The point is in the last clause — this is not a general drafting program but a design tool whose output goes to a production line.
Previously there were two separate products: Structure (design and engineering) and Detailer (layout). Their functions were brought together in Steelwise, and the manufacturer moves existing users across at licence renewal. The manuals of the older products are still available in the manufacturer’s knowledge base — in practice this means that anyone entering the system now will still come across older project material.
What it does
Section titled “What it does”Four modules
Section titled “Four modules”The software is organised into four areas: wall panels (studs, top and bottom tracks, headers, jambs, bracing), roof trusses, floor joists, and global tools that apply across all of them. This split is not cosmetic — it determines that different parts of the structure can be designed with their own settings.
Engineering on the model
Section titled “Engineering on the model”The software performs member-by-member checks, according to the manufacturer for wind, seismic, concentrated and drag loads among others, and works out hold-down forces as well as the capacity of bracing and service holes. The output is a frame-by-frame engineering report.
This is one of the system’s real advantages: layout and checking are not two separate work phases. If the designer moves a stud or enlarges an opening, no separate model has to be updated to see the consequence.
Automatic detailing and manufacturing output
Section titled “Automatic detailing and manufacturing output”The software produces panel detail sheets, connection solutions, the CNC model and the material report. The erection drawing, the machine program and the orderable quantity all come from the same model.
Where its limits are
Section titled “Where its limits are”Steelwise is for the frame. It is not a building modeller: it does not design the build-up, the services or the building envelope details, and it does not replace a global structural model of the whole building in every case. On larger or more complex structures, a global model in general analysis software and Steelwise’s member-by-member checks complement each other.
The manufacturer prices the engineering function as a separately paid add-on — so the claim that the software “does engineering” is licence-dependent, not a default.
The point
Section titled “The point”Steelwise is valuable because layout, checking and manufacturing output live in one model. Even so, responsibility for the engineering belongs to the qualified designer — the software calculates, a person answers for it.
Sources
Section titled “Sources”“About Steelwise steel framing software” and the Software and Tools section (FRAMECAD Knowledge Hub), plus the Steelwise product page, retrieved in September 2026.