Pictures, diagrams, and frames

Four buttons sit together in the Insert Region group. They do different jobs.

Picture puts a drawing or a photograph on the page. It is furniture. It takes no part in evaluation.

Diagram is a sketch canvas on the page: boxes, diamonds, arrows, labels, and freehand lines. Use it for a block diagram or a figure that is not a photo. It also takes no part in evaluation.

2D Frame and 3D Frame are analysis regions. You sketch nodes, members, supports, and loads, then press Solve. They write reactions, member forces, deflections, and stresses into the sheet as ordinary names. Use 2D when everything sits in one elevation. Use 3D when the structure leaves that plane.

Put a picture or a diagram wherever it looks right. A frame is different. Its answers enter scope at the frame's own place in evaluation order. Every formula that reads a name such as ss_RyA must sit below the frame. Drag the frame down the page and those formulas stop resolving.

The pages

1. Pictures — how do I get an image onto the sheet, and what happens when the file is too big?
2. Diagrams — how do I sketch a block diagram or an engineering figure on the page?
3. 2D structural frames — how do I model a plane frame, and what exactly are the variables Solve hands back called?
4. 3D structural frames — orbit, pan, and sketch on XY, XZ, or YZ. Render members as their sections. Same Solve names, now with out-of-plane terms.