How to reverse or rotate plates (redefine incidences) in STAAD.Pro?

Step by step guide and free tool to reverse plates in STAAD.Pro fast and easy.

Opposite orientation of plates

Sometimes after creation of STAAD.Pro model or importing of geometry from CAD systems you can discover an opposite orientation of plate elements like in this sample model: Opposite orientation of plates

The straight way but not the best

The straight way to redefine incidences is to change sequince of nodes within Geometry->Plates tab. That's OK for few plates but what to do if you need to reverse couple of them?

Download the free spreadsheet tool

Just download my spreadsheet tool which I'm sharing to the STAAD.Pro user's community for free of charge and follow for the steps described below Download free tool to reverse or rotate plates in STAAD.Pro

1-st step, select all plates

Simply select all plates and copy their list from the plates table.
Select and copy all plates

2-nd step, paste the list of all plates

Paste the copied list of all plates to the "All plates" tab of Reverse plates spreadsheet.
Paste all plates

3-rd step, select plates to be reversed

Simply select all plates to be reversed and copy their list from the plates table.

4-th step, paste the list of plates to be reversed

Paste the copid list of plates to be reversed to the "Plates to be reversed" tab of Reverse plates spreadsheet.
Paste plates to be reversed

5-th step, go to "Reversed plates" tab an copy the list

This step is self-explanatory. Just do it.
Copy the list of reversed plates

6-th step, oped STAAD Editor

Open STAAD Editor, find ELEMENT INCIDENCES SHELL portion and replace it with the copied list from "Reversed plates" tab of the spreadsheet.
Paste the list of reversed plates

7-th close STAAD Editor and enjoy the result

Just close STAAD Editor (save your input file) and STAAD will do it's job. All of opposite plates before looks correct for now.
Reversed plates

Plates with different rotation?

What to do if plates after modeling has different rotation?
Plates with different rotation

How to rotate plates?

I have added an option to rotate plates counterclockwise by 1, 2 or 3 nodes. Go for all steps as for reversion but on 5-th step copy rotated list of plates from relative sheet and paste within STAAD editor.
Select plates to be rotated

The result of rotation?

I have added an option to rotate plates counterclockwise by 1, 2 or 3 nodes. Go for all steps as for reversion but 5-th step copy rotated list of plates from relative sheet and paste into STAAD editor.
Rotated plates