1.     Introduction

NextFEM Designer is a user-friendly Finite Element Analysis program, which can be used alone or to be a pre- or post- processor for several widely used FEM programs (i.e. OOFEM, SAP2000, Midas GEN, OpenSees, ABAQUS/CalculiX, Zeus-NL, and others).

The most important features are:

-          general pre-processor capabilities: 3D and 2D views, customizable colours, accelerated rendering with DirectX technology;

-          modelling with the most common structural elements, such as beams, shells and solid elements;

-          importing input files from DXF drawings, OpenSees scripts, Midas GEN, SAP2000, ABAQUS, OOFEM, Zeus-NL;

-          importing results from SAP2000, OOFEM and OpenSees;

-          exporting models to SAP2000, ABAQUS, Midas GEN, OpenSees, OOFEM;

-          post-processing capabilities with deformed shapes with contour display, beam diagrams, stress and strain contour.