Groups in Sumo

A Group in Sumo is a useful organizational tool, groups can help reduce a drawing’s visual complexity and improve display performance by controlling how objects are displayed. Groups aren’t necessary for a successful analysis; however, it helps with the manipulation of the model. In a CAD program like PADDS or AutoCAD, groups are similar to layers. Groups can be created and named for each functional category of objects, such as walls, columns, beams, etc.

Each object has a property called Group, which can be found under the General Sub-heading on the Properties Palette.

Figure 1: Properties Palette for a selected Column

In the case of Figure 1, a Group was created and is called Columns – Concrete.

When importing a DWG/DXF file into Sumo, the available layers in the drawing are loaded as groups into Sumo.

Figure 2: DWG file loaded into Sumo – AutoCAD layers are available in Sumo