AceCad StruCad Steel Detailing Software

Established around the same time as Graitec in 1986, AceCad Software (authors of the well established Strucad steel detailing software platform) were the first to market with a commercially viable specialised steel detailing solution.

The company grew from the RDS group which specialised in design for the petrochemical and structural industry and after moving into fabrication the business sought to automate the design and detailing side of its operation in order to increase productivity and of course profitability.

With a well established pedigree and years of relevant experience the company developed what at the time was a very advanced software technology and recognising the commercial potential of the development AceCad software was formed to take the new product “Strucad” to the global market.

With very little if any viable competition the technologically advanced Strucad software become the dominant force in the steel detailing software arena for many years and has remained a key player ever since.

Strucad Steel Detailing Software

However Strucad's once global dominance is no longer as clear as it was originally principally as it now has some very serious competition to contend with, which comes from the development of Tekla on a desktop platform and more latterly Graitec's Advance Steel solution which takes advantage of the millions of dollars invested in Autodesk's flagship AutoCAD platform and many years of development in the European steel industry.

Unlike its two growing competitors both of whom are extremely well established in the construction market and have well developed BIM (building information modelling) solutions, AceCad appears to have chosen to maintain its focus on steel detailing. This of course could be spun as both a positive and a negative depending what side of the fence you may be sitting on.

Whilst AceCad has done an excellent job of providing additional functionality to its very loyal client base over the years, given the rise and excellent functionality of the competitive solutions a few questions have been raised by its own users of late.

One of these is its poor interoperability with other platforms which has become key as the effects of BIM are starting to become more widely felt. And the other is the seeming lack of development of the core modelling platform where the competition has had constant investment in core R&D, and seem to have accelerated ahead.

StruCad in its latest development indicates that it is now using the latest SQL server technology and Microsoft.net technologies which could simply mean an update of the database engine and graphical user interface, this of course is somewhat behind the curve of its competitors though. Whilst historically the best steel detailing software for many years. AceCad does not appear to mention any development of the core modelling platform and given the sheer dominance of Graitec’s Advance Steel 3D modelling and interoperability capabilities, and Tekla's 3D open API approach and historic development of it own 3D platform StruCad may need to totally re-develop its core going forward to keep pace with its competitors.