Announcing the Release of the new SkyCiv API
It’s official – we’ve released the latest version of our Structural Analysis and Design API, opening up endless possibilities for our users. Engineers can now use the SkyCiv API to access a wide range of analysis, design, rendering, reporting and modelling features directly, which will help engineers innovate in the field of structural engineering and design and complete tasks more efficiently.
The SkyCiv API will be in Beta for the first 6 months. We’ve had a number of early adopters test, use, and push the limits of the API, which has allowed our development team to refine it’s functionality to make it better for our users. The API has allowed our early adopters to do some pretty cool things, including: automating repetitive designs, empower clients in the planning stage, and speeding up the design stage by more than 90%! We want to start out by thanking these early adopters who have provided such valuable feedback and feature ideas which have helped shape this product.
What does the API do?
API stands for Application Programming Interface. Simply put, API’s allow users to submit some kind of input, perform an action, and return with a response. Other industries have been taking advantage of APIs for quite some time: Travel sites that allow you to search for the best flights from a variety of different providers are using the API’s from those airlines to give you that information directly in one location. Without API’s, you would need to go to each airline website individually. With the SkyCiv API, we can use the same concept for structural engineering. From a single click, you can generate a model, run an analysis, design checks and respond with a simple pass/fail result, without the need for any visual or graphical user input.
The newest version of the SkyCiv API allows engineers to access a huge amount of SkyCiv functionality directly with a simple HTTP request. The API packs a lot of power:
- Build analytical models – great for automating the modelling process
- Save/Load models to and from cloud storage
- Pull specific shapes from our Section Library (with more than 10,000 sections)
- Run structural analysis (linear, non-linear, buckling, cables, plates, frequency and response spectrum)
- Run design checks (AISC, NDS, AISI, Eurocode, British, Australia, Canadian Standards)
- Get Structural Analysis and comprehensive design check PDF reports
- Get wind/snow speeds and loads for specific regions (US, AU, CAN, NZ, EU)
- Render a model in 3D and display the structural analysis results – Free!
Combining the above functions, engineers can use API’s to automate tasks like so:
How can an engineer benefit from using an API?
An API can be used to build custom solutions, automate repetitive tasks or make data migration seamless. This is extremely valuable to engineers who are able to take advantage of these solutions by eliminating their most valuable resource: time. For example, imagine you had to model, analyse and design 100 very similar or repetitive structures. This would take tens if not hundreds of hours for an engineer to model, analyze and design using any typical structural engineering software. But with just a bit of code, engineers can loop around the API to automatically model each structure and to get the same results in a few minutes.
Teams and companies can benefit greatly by writing smart technology around powerful APIs. Let’s not forget there is a direct correlation between industry leaders and R&D expenditure. Providing faster turnaround for clients, more efficient designs, and giving engineers some of their time back is something we should all strive for. Smarter technology can enable this through the use of the SkyCiv API.
How do I get started?
It’s simple! Sign up for a Free 30 Day Trial to the SkyCiv API Account and you can start playing with our API right away. Check out our API documentation to help you get started and familiar with some of the features and functions we have available. We also have a public GitHub to help you with sample code and examples.
We’ve also made it easy to get started and play around with some of the API functions via our API Sandbox:
Need some help? Or not sure if this is what you need? Reach out to our team at [email protected] to discuss if the API is right for you. You have great ideas, we can help you bring them to life.
The SkyCiv Team is excited to bring this technology to your organisations and help the industry move forward as a whole.
CEO and Co-Founder of SkyCiv
BEng (Civil), BCom
