Every check is a post-frame check, because post-frame is the only kind of building we serve. They run continuously while you draw. Errors are buildings that cannot be built, ordered or warrantied as drawn. Warnings ask — things you might still do with your eyes open. Notes carry what a drawing would never say on its own: knee bracing, snow drift at a clerestory, ledger load handed to the main building's footings.
Also called: validations · warnings · errors · engineering checks · will this pass
It tells you the building will not work while you can still change it
More than forty standing checks across openings, structure, additions and foundation: an opening running off its wall, two openings claiming the same wall space, a window sitting on a post line, a truss span past what a plant will build, a post longer than yard stock, a footing sitting above frost depth. Each finding carries the live number that tripped it, so you are not hunting for what is wrong.
A building that cannot be built gets discovered on site, by the crew, with the material already delivered. Catching it while the customer is still looking at the screen costs nothing.
The owner stops finding out on site, with the material already delivered. A problem caught while the customer is still looking at the screen costs nothing to fix.
Minimum roof slope is an error, not a footnote
Each roofing product carries its own floor — ribbed steel 3/12, corrugated 2/12, lap-sealed and mechanical seam half in 12, snap-lock 3/12, shingles 4/12. Go under it and the finding is red, naming the product and the pitch: Main roof pitch 2/12 is below the 3/12 minimum for Ribbed steel (exposed fastener) — manufacturer warranties require it. Under that floor, exposed-fastener metal draws water back through the screw holes and voids essentially every manufacturer warranty. That is not something to pass along to a customer as a note.
A low-slope roof on exposed-fastener steel gets sold because nobody checked the product's minimum, and the first heavy rain finds every screw.
The owner never sells a roof the manufacturer won't stand behind. A leak call two winters later costs more than the job made, so the warranty limit is treated as an error.
Errors, warnings and notes — kept apart
Errors are things that cannot be built or ordered as drawn. Warnings are things you might still do with your eyes open — an end wall that is more door than wall, bay spacing outside the usual band, a lean-to past rafter-framing span, a gambrel in special-order territory. Notes carry what a drawing would never say on its own: knee bracing on tall walls, snow drift at a clerestory or a gambrel break, ledger load handed to the main building's footings. The button is named after the worst thing in the pile — 3 issues, with one of each beside it.
A wall of identical warnings trains people to dismiss them all — including the one that would have stopped a bad order.
The estimator reads the red ones because not everything is red. When every finding shouts, the one that matters gets ignored with the rest.
Click the warning and it takes you to the door
Try itA finding that names an opening is a button. Click it and that opening is selected, outlined and swung into view, with its card scrolled into place. One message is raised per offending opening rather than one sentence covering all of them — so when two windows overlap on a 60-foot wall, you get one finding for each, and each takes you to its window.
One vague message about “openings overlapping” on a wall with four windows leaves you clicking each one to find the pair.
The estimator fixes the problem in seconds instead of hunting for it. The fastest fix is the one that takes you to the thing that is wrong.
Warnings do not park themselves across your model
Try itA finding pops for five seconds when it first appears, then retires into a panel with a running count on the button. Nothing is lost by being dismissed and nothing sits on top of the building forever. A message that never leaves stops being read.
Warnings parked across the viewport hide the building they are about, and after a week nobody reads them.
The estimator keeps working on the model instead of reading around a wall of yellow boxes. A message that never leaves stops being read; one that pops and retires gets noticed.
You can read the checks you passed, not only the ones you failed
The panel lists every check the tool can raise, tripped or not, each with a plain sentence on why it matters. “No warnings”, on its own, tells you nothing about what was actually looked at. On a clean building the button reads All checks pass, and the list underneath shows the design was checked for truss span, embedment, frost depth, flashing and drift — and came back clear.
A design tool that only ever shows failures leaves the builder unable to say what a clean design was actually checked against.
The rep can show a customer what the building was checked for, which builds more trust than a quiet screen. A list of the standing questions is proof of the work, not just the absence of red.
- 1Draw. The checks run as you go, against real limits.
- 2An error is red: an opening off its wall, two openings sharing space, a roof below its product's minimum slope, a post past yard stock, a gambrel past the truss ceiling. Some limits simply stop the stepper — a gambrel will not go past 60′.
- 3A warning asks: an end wall that is more door than wall, a window sitting on a post line, bay spacing outside the usual band, a lean-to past rafter-framing span.
- 4A note tells you what the drawing cannot: bracing, vehicle clearance, drift loads, flashing.
- 5Each finding carries the live number that tripped it, so you are not hunting.
- 6Click a finding that names an opening and it selects that opening and swings the camera to it.
A builder can otherwise draw and sell a building that cannot be ordered, and find out when the truss plant calls back — after the price is agreed. Checks run continuously against real limits: gambrel trusses have a factory span ceiling, a 6x6 has a stock length, and a single-slope truss gets un-orderably deep past about 40ft of span. Minimum roof slope is an error rather than a warning, because below it exposed-fastener steel leaks at the screws and voids virtually every manufacturer warranty.
- Selling a building that cannot be permitted, ordered or warrantied.
- Engineering concerns that only surface after the deposit.
Findings toast, then retire into a panel
Two lives for every finding. A message on first appearance, then a panel entry with a standing count on the button. Nothing is lost by dismissing it, and nothing parks itself across the model.
Every check, explained — including the ones you passed
A full list of the standing questions. Each one carries its area, a plain title, a one-line reason it matters, and the level it raises. Deliberately no numbers in the prose — the finding itself carries the live figure, so there is never a second copy of a threshold to drift.
Click a warning and it takes you to the problem
Every finding names one offending piece and carries it. Click the message and the tool selects that opening exactly as clicking it in 3D would — outline, name chip, panel card, resize handles — and swings the camera to face it.