PADDS DRAWING & DETAILING

CONCRETE REINFORCEMENT DETAILING & SCHEDULING IN A CAD

ENVIRONMENT

Summary
The Prokon suite includes a full-featured CAD program. Padds was designed specifically for structural engineers. It is
intuitive to use and new users are usually pleasantly surprised by its easy learning curve. Without the bloat of modern
CAD systems, all that remains is a lean and powerful tool for drawing and structural detailing.

The reinforcement detailing functionality of Padds is also available in Probar 2D, an extension for AutoCAD®. Padds is
further complemented by the free PaddView drawing viewer.

Detailed Description
All the basic CAD procedures are available to create or edit drawings. Elements like lines, arcs, circles, splines, text,
hatch, dimensions, blocks, and construction lines are all supported with a host of editing functions. Using an innovative
approach to layers and scales, laying out details on a drawing sheet is very intuitive.

The program has a large number of reinforcement detailing functions. You can work with reinforcement bending
schedules created with the concrete design modules, or create drawings and schedules from scratch.

Note: The reinforcement detailing functionality of Padds is also available in Probar 2D, an extension for AutoCAD® that
is sold separately. Probar 2D can open Padds drawings, including bending schedules generated by the Prokon concrete
design modules. Padds is often looked upon as a tool for engineers and designers (i.e. team members that don't
necessarily use AutoCAD®), and Probar 2D as a tool for draftsmen and technicians (i.e. people that do use AutoCAD®
on a regular basis). Depending on the specific requirements of your work environment, this will not necessarily hold true
for you.

Padds' powerful macro and scripting functionality (based on the Pascal programming language), allows you to develop
your own extensions. Included macro functions include a complete staircase detailing function, and a function to combine
multiple bending schedules (A4 or letter size) onto a larger sheet.

Padds links with the Prokon Section Database to enable you to draw standard profiles in section, elevation or plan.
Creating welding details is also easy, given the included library of welding symbols.
These features gear Padds for basic detailing of structural steel.

A full library of commonly used structural and architectural entities is available and you can expand this repository as
needed.

What makes this module Special:

• Automatic scheduling: the program automatically reads all the bars in the drawing and sorts them first by
member name and then by bar mark.
• Work with reinforcement bending schedules created with the Prokon concrete design modules, or create
drawings and schedules from scratch.
• Generate geometrical input for other Prokon analysis modules, like taking complex slab geometries and
generating finite element meshes for Frame Analysis.

Supported Detailing Codes

Detailing Codes

BS 4466 – 1989
BS 8666 – 2005
SANS 282 – 2004
SANS 282 - 2011

Comments
Padds can generate geometrical input for other PROKON analysis modules. Examples include drawing shapes for section
property calculation in Prosec or design in General Column Design, and taking complex slab geometries and generating
finite element meshes for Frame Analysis.

You can import drawings from and export to a variety of formats. Supported formats include AutoCAD DWG, DXF and
Caddie CEX.