SDS/2 Steel Detailing & 3D Modeling Services

The service takes a steel package from contract drawings to fabrication release inside SDS/2: document review, RFI drafts, the 3D model, connections input to the Engineer of Record's (EOR's) design, model review, shop and erection drawings, reports, NC files and the submittal package. A second person checks every drawing before it is released.

Scope covers structural steel detailing for beams, columns, bracing and their connections, and miscellaneous steel detailing for stairs, ladders, handrails, embeds, canopies, mezzanines, pipe racks, skids and industrial platforms.

Two things stay with others. Design, including connection design, remains with the EOR or a delegated connection engineer engaged under your contract. RFIs are drafted by Vertex and submitted by you through your contractual channel; detailing proceeds on confirmed information, and open items are held or flagged rather than assumed. The steel detailing process lists the inputs and outputs at each stage.

Running one platform is a specialization, not a gap in the toolset. The detailers and checkers all work in SDS/2 every day, so its connection design automation, drawing generation, report engine and CNC exports are used in depth, and your shop standards are set up once in one environment instead of being rebuilt for each project's software.

What one environment changes on your job

• Connection design automation: settings are entered to the EOR's requirements, so a repeated framing condition gets the same connection throughout the job.
• Drawing generation and reports: member details, submaterial details, erection views, bolt lists and bills of material all come from the same model.
• CNC exports: DSTV NC1 and KISS files are written from the model revision that produced the released drawings.
• Checking: checkers review drawings produced by the same software and settings they work in themselves.

Who does the work

Vertex Steel Detailing was founded in 2026. Its five detailers and checkers are based in Karnataka, India, and work for steel fabricators and construction businesses across the United States. The lead detailer has 8 years of SDS/2 experience.

When an SDS/2-only team is the wrong fit

If your shop, general contractor or erector needs a native model from another platform, such as a Tekla Structures model your own detailers will continue, Vertex cannot provide it. SDS/2 produces PDF drawings, reports, DSTV NC1 files, KISS files and IFC exports instead. If you are choosing a platform for your own seats, the SDS/2 vs Tekla comparison covers where each one fits.

Each package produces drawings, reports and machine files from one SDS/2 model: shop and erection drawings, bolt lists, material takeoffs and bills of material, DSTV NC1 files, a KISS file, an IFC export and the submittal package. The table below lists what each contains and the format it arrives in.

Drawings are prepared in accordance with AISC 303 and AISC 360, with weld symbols to AWS A2.4. Sheet-by-sheet contents are covered under steel shop drawings and erection drawings, and the guide to NC files and CNC integration explains how DSTV and KISS exports reach your beam line, plate processor and shop software.

It is used to place connections consistently to requirements the Engineer of Record has already set. Connection settings are entered to match the EOR's connection details, loads and criteria, and SDS/2 then generates connections across the model. The automation is a productivity and consistency tool; Vertex does not perform stamped connection design or take connection design responsibility.

What the automation handles

• Connection types: your preferred types, such as single-plate shear or double-angle connections, applied wherever the framing and the EOR's requirements allow.
• Bolt and weld settings: carried into every generated connection. A 3/4" dia. A325N bolt gets a 13/16" standard hole, the nominal hole dimension in AISC 360 Table J3.3.
• Member changes: connections update with the member, and the detailer reviews the result against the design drawings.

Where SDS/2 would produce a connection that differs from the EOR's details, the EOR's details govern. Where the design drawings leave a condition open, such as a skewed connection with no detail or reaction shown, it goes to an RFI rather than a software default.

The connection detailing service page covers how bolt patterns, welds, plates and holes are shown for fabrication.

Before any shop or erection drawing is extracted, the model is run through clash detection in SDS/2 and reviewed against the design drawings. Fixing a wrong elevation, member size or material grade in the model corrects it once, at its source, instead of on every detail and erection view that would otherwise repeat it.

The review covers grids and top-of-steel elevations, member sizes, material grades against the specifications, connection conditions against the EOR's details and RFI responses, and miscellaneous steel locations.

After extraction, every drawing is checked by a second person who did not draw it, against the design drawings, specifications, RFI responses and your shop standards. The detailer corrects, and the checker back-checks the corrections before release. Approval comments are clouded, the revision is advanced, and the affected drawings are checked again. The drawing checking and quality control process sets out the full sequence.

Your shop standards are entered as SDS/2 settings and templates during intake, before modeling begins, so the model, drawings, reports and NC files follow your conventions from the first issue. The table lists what that setup covers; anything in your standards that conflicts with the contract documents goes on the list of open questions.

You send the package your in-house detailers cannot reach, with the same documents they would work from, and it is modeled, drawn and checked in SDS/2 to your shop standards. What comes back is an approval set, then a fabrication set with reports, NC files and KISS data, issued under revision control so every change can be traced.

For a shop bringing in an SDS/2 detailer for hire, the handoff runs in four stages:

How revisions stay traceable

Each issue carries a revision designation; on the reference project, Rev A was the approval issue and Rev 0 the fabrication issue. Changes are clouded on the affected sheets and entered in a revision log. NC files and reports are regenerated from the same model revision as the drawings, so a revised plate on a shop drawing has a matching revised DSTV file.

India Standard Time (IST) runs 9 hours 30 minutes ahead of US Eastern Daylight Time, so the team's working day in Karnataka falls during the US night. A markup sent at 5:00 p.m. EDT arrives at 2:30 a.m. IST the next day, and work sized to one working day can be returned for review the next US morning.

From Central Daylight Time the gap is 10 hours 30 minutes, from Mountain 11 hours 30 minutes and from Pacific 12 hours 30 minutes; add one hour while US clocks are on standard time, because IST does not change. Overnight cycles suit markups, revisions, RFI drafts and check corrections, while larger packages move through several cycles. Same-hour answers during the US afternoon are limited, a trade-off weighed in the guide to outsourcing steel detailing.

Vertex publishes an hourly rate of $15–20 USD for SDS/2 detailing, set within that range by project complexity. Repetitive framing, coordinated contract documents, established shop standards, standard shear connections and reasonable schedules sit toward $15. Skewed or sloped framing, moment connections, thermal breaks, dense miscellaneous steel, heavy revision volume and compressed schedules move a job toward $20.

As a hypothetical, a package estimated at 100 hours at $18 per hour would cost $1,800; the hours for your job come from the estimate prepared at intake. The steel detailing rates page explains what moves a project within the range and how packages are quoted.

The published reference is an airport terminal rehabilitation and addition in New England, detailed for an AISC-certified fabricator: HSS frame assemblies connected to W-shape framing through structural thermal breaks. Rev A was issued for approval on September 3, 2026, and Rev 0 for fabrication and field use on September 9, 2026, six days later.

The 1" pad sits in the bolted joint, so bolt lengths on the details and field bolt lists have to account for it. Whether a project needs thermal breaks is the design team's decision, and pad properties come from the manufacturer's published data and the EOR. The airport terminal thermal break framing case study describes the package in full, and thermal break detailing covers how these connections are detailed for fabrication.