Favorite Wood Design Software

[TFL]

I am doing research into what wood design programs are available. I was wondering if there is a program for wood design similar to the RAM structural system. We are doing both typical and custom houses. We currently do all our wood design by hand or with spread sheets. The building officials in my area are starting to request calculations for residential structures (though I don’t know why but that is a different topic) and I was hoping to automate the process.

I am aware that the woodworks design package is available from American Forest and Paper. I have downloaded the evaluation version and used it briefly. Does anyone out there use it? If people are using it, what do they think of it? Does it make designing easier? Is it better for small houses or more complex structures? Does if making submitting calculations easier? Is there a better program out there?

I am not really interested in simple spreadsheet type programs or single beam programs. I can write my own spreadsheets for that. I am looking for an integrated design program.

Thanks in advance for any help

tfl

 

[rd78]

tfl-
I use Woodworks sometimes. It does take away some of the tedious work for the shearwalls portion of the program. I still use the older 2000 version, which means I calculate lateral loads by hand (Mathcad template). A shortcoming though, in my opinion, is that it doesn't deal effectively with skewed walls or tri-level type structures. You end up needing to do more engineering to tie things together. They say the 2005 version will address this.

RD