Scia Engineer

[kodak79]

Has anyone used the Scia Engineer Analysis and design 3D package? If so how would say it compares to other software available in the market (such as STAAD, CSC's software, etc)?

 

[OCI]

Kodak79,
I do part time consulting for the US Scia office, so i'm a little biased. I won't brag about the benefits and features here but if you send me a PM I could provide you some information.

 

[countervail]

Ive used SCIA Engineer, Robot, Stadd, Microstran, A3D Max, RAM Concept.

They all have advantages and problems. SCIA engineer is vastly improved over the its previous incarnation (PrimaWin). Its pretty good for concrete plates and steel members but maybe a bit processor hungry.

I definitely prefer it over Robot and would say its par with Stadd. RAM Concept, A3d MAX & Microstran are more targeted packages that aim to do less (the versions I was using anyway) but are good at the things they are meant to do.

The ability in SCIA Engineer to set up reports and then bring in the results is handy if you do any standard work where you just need to change a few parameters each time.

Whether SCIA Engineer is any good for you depends if you want an all singing package that aims to do everything or a targeted package that aims to do one thing (hopefully very well). The main problem with the all singing packages is they take a lot of effort to get into and understand all the input parameters and methods of calculations.

You used to be able to download a demo version, so I would look at that if you can.

All that is just my personal opinion mind, you may well like the others better.