Metal Wood Framer

[clhattel]

Has anyone used this Metal Wood Framer program?
Any opinions about it would be great.

[jkuhnle154184]

I think if you call them they will give you a free demo, I think the company is out of Montreal.

When I tried it out it was very menu driven. You had to make your wall panels by editing a bunch of different menus and making sure the options were correctly set. Seemed a little clumsy to me. Then it spits out a wall in 3D and it will spit out 2D drafting views of the wall for you to put on sheets. Once you create those 2D drafting views they are no longer linked to the model. If you want to change things; you go back into the menus, change the input, and regenerate the model and your 2D views again.

It seems geared towards companies that make panelized wall systems. If you are making shop drawings for wood or metal studs it might be worth looking into. In my opinion it's a great idea, but not developed to where it's really useful yet.

[Richard - CSG]

We had an extensive review of it and spent a good 2 months with it. The system behind the framing mechanism is pretty robust and because of these might seem intimidating at first with all the settings. However, once you familiarize yourself with the language and layout it is pretty simple to work with. Also, you can save settings so repeating wall styles is as simple as applying a style. The issue for us (and the reason we ultimately did not choose to purchase) was the 2d output drawings were not as customizable as we needed. A better solution (IMO) would have been to generate a true elevation view so it remained parametric

They do have excellent customer service - they were always available to discuss our issues and even scheduled a meeting with their programmers so we could explain our concerns and see if they were solvable with a simple patch. If it looks like something you could use, I would definitely at least try the demo - I believe it still comes with a 1hr training session.

[alexinegs704938]

Alexine from StrucSoft here, makers of MWF. I know this is an old thread but we still get a lot of web traffic from it so wanted to share an update with you regarding your concerns. Our drawings have now been parametric for quite some time and significant work has been done on the quality, speed and dimensioning options of drawings. There is also a brand new look and feel which is a lot easier to use than the older menus while still keeping the robust features described here. If you would like to check it out, we have a webinar coming up May 9th or you can get in touch via our website .