Choosing Software: Enercalc, TEDDS or MathCAD?

[SoFloJoe]

Hey All,

I am trying to determine the best software to choose. I have done some research and thinking of going with Enercalc, TEDDS or MathCAD. I currently use STAAD and my own excel sheets, but honestly not liking STAAD anymore and getting really tedious developing and maintain my own excel sheets.

My use will be primarily structural and wind design and I like to be able to see, review and edit the formulas for the calculations. From what I have seen Enercalc does not seem to have this ability. And I have already read through a pretty good review of them on the previous thread:

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=329167

My question is, I do want to have the functionality of turning the calculations that are done from any of these back into excel for my own editing purposes with full formulas not just numeric outputs. From your experience is this function even available in any of these softwares? I did see that TEDDS was able to convert into a word document but not sure about excel. And I believe MathCAD does have this ability if anyone can confirm?

Also, I've been trying to find the costs associated and finding conflicted pricing information online. Is there a good website/URL to find this information?

Thanks for your help!

 

[GregLocock]

Mathcad?

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[IRstuff]

Mathcad runs around $600, and has some limited export capability, primarily images of the equations, rather than the actual equations.

There are a couple utilities that allow you to create WYSIWYG equations in Excel, such as Mathlook for Excel:

https://www.uts.com/ItemSummary.asp?ItemID=1100-40-0000-00

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[dik]

SMath Studio... free...

Dik

 

[SoFloJoe]

Yes MathCAD. Auto correct for some reason kept changing it.

I am looking for a more efficient solution such as TEDDS or Enercalc. As modules are already built in but I still like the feel and usability of checking formulas in excel. So my main thought was being able to export out of those applications to excel.

I'll checkout SMath Studio.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[klaus.]

Mathcad is not a design program....

 

[MintJulep]

If developing and maintaining Excel sheets is too tedious for you I'd expect the same for MathCAD and SMath.

 

[JoelTXCive]

I (and several of my co-workers) are using SMath more and more for calculations. The software is not perfect, but it's free; which is a pretty large selling point.

We looked at purchasing MathCAD but it seems 1/2 the people love the product and 1/2 the people hate it.

This is a little thing, but was important to me....Smath has 'autocomplete' on variable names. As you start typing a variable name, Smath will pop up your existing named variables (excel has a similar feature).

It is my understanding that MathCAD does not have this feature, which blows my mind. You have to remember all your variable names. This is a huge pain when dealing with lots of variables.

Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox..

 

[SoFloJoe]

Thanks everyone.

And what about TEDDS and Enercalc? What are your experiences with cost and excel export-ability?

 

[klaus.]

well I don't know SMath but Mathcad is a very powerful tool
But as usual...the more powerful the more 'complicated'

 

[IFRs]

MathCad
I have a stand-alone license so it's mine forever but I'm stuck in version 15.
It does what I need and has for decades.
The newest version is OK also
I've dabbled in the others but never long enough to get comfortable.

 

[CConrad]

SoFloJoe,

Thanks for your interest in ENERCALC.

Our products do not feature the ability see the formulas or to cut and paste to EXCEL. The engineers who select ENERCALC products are looking for more of a fill-in-the-blanks type of application.

You mentioned STAAD, and wanting to get away from it. If you do still have the need for some truss and frame analysis and design, our Structural Engineering Library includes a 2D Frame module that will serve those purposes well. If you have a need for 3D frame analysis and design, we offer a cloud-based subscription called ENERCALC SE that includes STRUCTURE (the cloud version of Structural Engineering Library), EARTH (the cloud version of RetainPro), and ENERCALC 3D (our 3D FEM analysis and design application).

For pricing info, please visit our website.

Good luck in your search for new software.

Director of Technical Services
ENERCALC, Inc.
Web:

http://www.enercalc.com

 

[justhumm]

As noted above, MathCAD is not a design program, but is can be a very useful and versatile tool.

Though it can have a learning curve to it, if you're getting into programming and procedures.

In the past, I've done some work that involved structural analysis with an finite element program, dropped the finite element output into an Excel table, used VBA to send the data table through a MathCAD worksheet, and brought the MathCAD output back into excel...but that may not be typical use of it.

FDOT (and maybe some other organizations) publish MathCAD worksheets for use with their specifications. That might give you an idea of some use.

[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.fdot.gov/structures/proglib.shtm[/url]

And as dik mentioned above, SMath is freeware, with a lot of similar (though not all) capabilities as MathCAD...and it's free...

[URL unfurl="true"]https://en.smath.info/view/SMathStudio/summary[/url]

 

[TEDstruc]

I have spent some time using TEDDS. Here are my take-aways:

There are lots of limitations, don't expect tedds to do anything you couldn't do in a spreadsheet. It won't replace staad, but would be a good supplement to a good structural analysis software like staad or risa or any other analysis software.

The nice thing about tedds is all of the built in modules and that they give you all of the inputs, calculations and results. It's also pretty well geared for customization.
They do have lots of built in modules and are always developing and adding modules. The tedds interface is pretty easy to follow but can be finicky if you don't do things in the right order.
You can stay in tedds interface and print results with calculations, or export results and calculations to word. There to two exporting options, one just exports to word and has no programming behind it, but you can edit however you want, the other exports to word and enables an add-in that allows you to modify calculation variables and it will automatically update the affected calcs when you change something. This is a nice feature.

You can also write your own calculations in tedds for word and create templates with built in user interface features. There are pretty good tutorials on writing tedds calcs but it does take a little while to figure out how to do it. It's almost like writing code, but not nearly as cumbersome or difficult. Much more intuitive than writing code.

I also remember having occasional issues getting TEDDS to work properly and would have unexpected errors, where I would have to call customer support, but they were pretty good about getting issues resolved. But still a pain when you are working against a deadline on a project.

 

[SoFloJoe]

Thanks for the insight!

Since my original posting I have been using STAAD and my own excel sheets I've been developing. So far it is working well, but each time I have a new type of calculation it takes me an additional 20 or so hours to develop a new spreadsheet. Though this is starting to get a bit time intensive so I maybe considering a switch to something like TEDDS or Enercalc.