Use the Slope Calculator

Work out the elevation at any point along a sloped line — then type it into the dialog that needs it.

The Slope Calculator is a small stand-alone worksheet: give it the total run of a sloped line and the elevation at each end, and it reads back the elevation at any distance along that line. It draws nothing and stores nothing — it exists purely to produce the numbers you then enter in the Ledger / Top Plate and Weld Connections dialogs. It is most useful for calculating the elevations of ledgers and weld-connection arrays at the panel joints of an entire wall line — one slope entered once, then read off panel by panel — though it works just as well for discrete elevations inside a single panel.

Steps

  1. Open the Slope Calculator — from the toolbar, or from the CV menu.

  2. Enter the Total Distance — the full length of the sloped run, typically the wall line. If the plans give the slope as a rise — say 4” in 12’ — you can instead enter just the reference run (12') here.

  3. Enter the Starting Elevation and Ending Elevation — the elevation of the line at each end of that run. Use the same convention the target dialog uses: top of ledger for ledgers, center of plate for weld-connection arrays. (For the rise-style entry above, Ending = Starting + the rise, e.g. starting elevation plus 4".)

  4. Type the distance you care about into Distance Change — usually the distance from the start of the run to a panel joint, or to the next embed — and press Enter. The Elevation … at … pair below reads back the answer: the elevation, at that distance.

  5. Enter the value in the dialog that needs it — Left Elev / Right Elev on a ledger row, the array elevations on a weld-connection row — and repeat step 4 for the next joint. Clear All resets every field to zero; Cancel closes the calculator.

All fields accept the usual entry forms — 12', 22'1, 4", or plain inches.

Fields

Field

What it does

Total Distance

Length of the sloped run the elevations below belong to — the wall line, or the reference run of a rise (the 12’ of “4 in 12”).

Starting Elevation

Elevation at the beginning of the run — to top of ledger, or to center of plate, matching the dialog you are feeding.

Ending Elevation

Elevation at the end of the run, same convention.

Distance Change

Two jobs: as soon as both elevations are in, it shows the total rise or fall of the run; then type over it with the distance you want the elevation for.

Elevation … at …

The answer, read-only in effect: the computed elevation, and the distance it was computed at.

Back / Clear All / Cancel / Help

Clear All zeroes every field; Cancel (or Back) closes the calculator; Help opens the help.

Worked example — following TP08-12’s gable

The tutorial panel TP08-12 is 25’-10” wide with eaves at 22’-1” and a roof peak at 24’-6”, 12’-11” from the left edge. Suppose you want embeds that follow the left roof slope instead of Tutorial 7’s level run:

  1. Total Distance: 12'11 — eave to peak.

  2. Starting Elevation: 22'1 — center of plate at the eave end.

  3. Ending Elevation: 24'6 — at the peak. Distance Change now reads the total rise, 2’-5”.

  4. Type 2'11 (the first embed’s distance) over Distance Change — the readout shows an elevation of about 22’-7 9/16” at 2’-11”.

  5. Type 7'11 (one 5’-0” spacing further) — about 23’-6 3/4” at 7’-11”.

Repeat for each embed or joint and enter the results in the dialog rows that need them. Readings display to your drawing’s precision — expect values to the nearest sixteenth.

Slope Calculator or Roofline tracking?

Both solve “embeds on a slope” — pick by scope:

  • Roofline tracking (check Roofline on a weld-connection row) is model-driven: draw the panel’s roof lines once, and each plate’s elevation is computed where it crosses the line — automatically, on every redraw, offset by whatever distance you specify. Prefer it within a single panel following its own roof. See Add weld connections.

  • The Slope Calculator is pure arithmetic: nothing is linked, so the numbers stay right only as long as the slope does — but it works across panels (a bearing line continuing through an entire wall line has no single panel’s roof line to track) and for fields that have no tracking hook at all, such as a sloped ledger’s end elevations.

Notes

  • Nothing is stored. The calculator holds no connection to the drawing — closing it changes nothing, and it opens cleared each time. Work a wall line out in one sitting, or note the values down. (The legacy manual describes entries persisting between sessions and a cumulative distance with Back as its undo; the current release is a simpler single-lookup worksheet — each Distance Change entry is independent, and Back just closes the dialog.)

  • The in-dialog Slope Calc buttons open a different tool in this release. The Weld Connections and Ledger / Top Plate dialogs carry a Slope Calc button, but in the current release it opens the companion Foot/Inch Calculator (general construction arithmetic — sums, areas, hypotenuses, volumes). To get the slope worksheet described here, open the Slope Calculator from the toolbar or the CV menu.

  • Match the elevation convention. Ledger elevations read to the top of the ledger; weld-connection elevations read to the center of plate (with Elev To on C/Pl). Feeding a T/Pl-convention dialog from top-of-steel plans works the same way — just keep both ends of the slope in the same convention.