ParaCrux

Available Everyday · 4 min

Install standard sections as weldment profiles

Write all 306 standard sections into SOLIDWORKS as weldment profiles, each checked as a 1 m member, then pick them in Structural Member.

Video in production

Until it is ready, this is the running order. Each step is also written out below, and you can try it in the simulator.

  1. SOLIDWORKS must be open

    Export with SOLIDWORKS closed; the refusal line.

  2. Writing and checking

    SOLIDWORKS open; the status counting up; time-lapse of sizes opening and closing.

  3. The result

    306 written; folder added; Structural Member › Standard ParaCrux EN › UB › 203x133x25.

  4. Again, quickly

    Export again: 0 written, 306 unchanged, under a second.

You need

  • The desktop app on Windows. Exporting uses no seat and no AI credit
  • SOLIDWORKS open on the same computer
  • About half an hour for the first export

You'll come away with

  • Export the sections and know what each check means
  • Find them under Standard ParaCrux EN in Structural Member
  • Know why later exports are quick

Step by step

  1. Open SOLIDWORKS first

    SOLIDWORKS writes the profile files itself, so it must be running. If it is not, the export stops before writing anything and tells you to open it.

  2. Export

    In the app, open Home › Profiles and choose Export to SolidWorks under SolidWorks weldment profiles. SOLIDWORKS briefly opens each size it writes, so the first export of all 306 takes around half an hour; our test run of 283 took 27 minutes. The status line shows which size it is writing.

  3. Every size is checked

    After writing each file, SOLIDWORKS builds a 1 m structural member from it in a scratch part that is never saved. The file is installed only if the member's volume matches the section area to one part in a million.

  4. Find them in SOLIDWORKS

    If every size passed, the app adds the folder to SOLIDWORKS' weldment profile locations. In Structural Member, choose Standard ParaCrux EN, then the type (UB, UC, RHS, SHS, CHS, Equal angle or Flat bar) and the size.

  5. Export again after an update

    The app keeps a record of what it wrote. A later export rewrites only new, changed or missing sizes, and removes only files it wrote for sizes that have left the library. Files ParaCrux did not write are never changed.

Try it here.

The messages are the app's own. The counts and times are from the live run on SOLIDWORKS 2026 (34.4.1) on 30 September 2026, which drove the same export code as the button. The size shown while writing is an example. That run wrote the 283 steel sections, before the 23 aluminium round tubes were added; a first export now writes 306.

Desktop app · Home › Profiles simulated · step 1 of 7

  1. YOUExport to SolidWorks, with SOLIDWORKS closed

    Illustration

What it won't do

  • Angles and hollow sections have sharp corners: the library has no cited toe or corner radii for them, so none is assumed. Their SOLIDWORKS mass can differ slightly from tabulated masses.
  • Universal beams and columns carry their root radii, so their masses come within 0.49% of the tabulated mass per metre at 7,850 kg/m³.
  • If any size fails its check, the folder is not added to SOLIDWORKS. The status names the first failure.
  • Only the bundled standard sections are exported, not your personal profiles.
  • To remove them, take the folder out of SOLIDWORKS Options › File Locations › Weldment Profiles and delete C:\ProgramData\ParaCrux\SolidWorks Weldment Profiles.

If you see a message

Covers: Weldment profile export. See the full index