Report Generation and Formatting 1

[DaveVikingPE]

I have been using several, well-established structural (and other) engineering computer programs for quite a while. One thing that I've never been fully satisfied about is the presentation of the final results.

Example: STAAD provides the user with final output in a pretty good report. The user may customize these reports with features like inclusion of the firm's logo, time and date stamps, project names, etc., etc. (OT: only in my own calculation sets have I even seen anyone use anything other than STADD's initial 3D graphiic of the structure - I've included front, side and 3D views). There are also plenty of software out there that's not much more than legacy mainframe/DOS-based (if it works, there's no problem with that).

In my experience, these legacy programs dump a "report" of the output that often times, when printed on 8-1/2 X 11 or A4 paper, looks terrible. Examples: tables that span over a couple of pages, with heading sin the middle of a page, etc.

Question: should I simply accept the default, raw report format, print it out and add it to my paper calcs or should I format the output report such that readability and presentation are to my satisfaction?

 

[corus]

I've seen such 'reports' with Cosmos Solidworks. They look fine for QA/internal purposes but they can't beat a written report that explains the model in detail for those who aren't familiar with the method or what the results mean.

corus

 

[PSE]

Know your audience and try to format your report accordingly. Is it an "overview" to managment types or the details needed by those doing the work. I have not encountered engineering programs that do a nice job of formatting output for presentation purposes. It is not their primary function.

Regards,

 

[DaveVikingPE]

OK, good to see that there are some opinions on this...

Here's how it all started: I had a bunch of "ugly" output - formatted by an engineering program for the days of continuous feed dot matrix or whatever printers. My experience long, long ago is that getting the margins right on these things is a fool's task. It was so much easier to let the printout go as it had to and then photocopy the result on 8-1/2 X 11 paper and use it accordingly.

Well, I don't want to do that any more. I set up a Word template with the company calculations header – including logo, project, subject, sheet no_ of_, job number, designed by, checked by, etc., etc. – that I could cut and paste or open-as-text the output reports into and, I thought, I had a really nice, slick, professional looking document that complimented my calculations (not to mention that it was quite useful, improved readability, etc.). All win-win, right? Well, I was informed that output reports should be provided in the calculations as they are and that I should NOT reformat this kind of output. Reason: the liability for the output is not the company’s but the software authors’.

I didn’t argue and complied.

But it really bothered me. A) yeah, sure, the liability is on the software folks; it’s on the engineer using the program. B) Can that be for real?

Comments?

 

[cooperDBM]

The software license of most programs puts the liability on the designer/user. The designer is the qualified and licensed professional, not the software.

If you include the output unchanged in your calculations then you are saying that you have checked the results (perhaps you prequalified the software for your use) and agree with them. If you alter the results with hand-marked changes then you are saying that you agree with the results with the following changes. I regard reformatting in the same light. The designer is responsible for the final output, not the software.

That being said there is value in keeping a set of unaltered output, perhaps in an appendix or electronically, in order the trace the origin of any problems found later (irregardless of liability). You may want to know if a certain result was generated by the software or the mistaken result of reformatting.

My approach has been to alter or reformat the results, as required, for my calculation file, and to keep a backup of the results (usually electronically if possible), or to keep the appropriate version of the program and the data file on file for regeneration.

 

[DaveVikingPE]

I agree 100% with cooperDBM.

anyone disagree and why?