Scan & Solve
Give a calculator a picture of a structural problem and it builds the model for you — read in your browser, on the canvas in seconds.
What you can photograph
A page from a textbook, a screenshot, a lecture slide, a printed assignment or a photo of a whiteboard. What matters is that the figure is legible and its dimensions and loads are marked.
What it reads off the drawing
Joints and members, supports — pin, roller or fixed — point and distributed loads with their directions, magnitudes and units, the dimension lines and the scale they set. The joint letters on the figure become the names in the model.
It builds the model for you
The model is applied to the calculator’s canvas as soon as it is read — there is no approval step. From there it is an ordinary model: move a joint, change a load, or discard it and start again.
It shows its work
Beside the picture sits a plain-language list of what was read: the supports, how many loads, the units, which values were assumed rather than read, which lines could not be applied, and whether the model solves. Read it against the figure before you trust the numbers.
- Supports: pin at joint A, roller at joint E.
- 3 load(s) were read.
- Units: kN, m.
- 1 value(s) were assumed, not read
- The model solves.
It declines rather than guesses
A value it cannot read is declined and said to be declined, never quietly invented. A confident wrong reading is the worst thing it could do, and on our reference set of textbook figures it has none.
Problems written in symbols
Where the figure states P, w, M0, a and EI instead of numbers, the model is built with one unit of each. Every result comes back as a multiple of them, the way a textbook answer is written.
The picture stays on your machine
The reading happens in your browser. The picture is never uploaded, and Scan & Solve is free and needs no sign-up, like the rest of the site.