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What’s New in Avontus Designer: custom planking, toeboard text, and improved rendering
The latest release of Avontus Designer® introduces workflow improvements that reduce repeated setup and manual adjustments and give you more control.
1. Custom Planking: Full Control Over Plank Specifications
Designer’s intelligent layout algorithm uses a widest-plank-first approach, ensuring optimal efficiency out of the box. But specialized bays, such as stairway turnaround and landings, sometimes require flexibility. With this update, you can now:
- Specify plank types and widths for individual bay levels and bays
- Mix plank materials
- Set the maximum plank width for a bay to limit the planks used
2. Toeboard Text: Branding Meets Protection
Your designs are your intellectual property. Our new toeboard text feature lets you add custom text – your company name or any branding – to your toeboards.
Key benefits:
When you show designs to clients, they see your brand. It’s a simple addition that speaks to professionalism.
- Add company name or other text in the color you choose in Global Options
- Present perfect legibility at any print scale
- Export branded drawings seamlessly to Avontus Viewer®, 3D PDF, or DWG formats (and upload to ScaffoldIQ™!)
3. Enhanced 3D Rendering for Stunning Presentations
We’ve upgraded our 3D rendering engine with an enhanced anti-aliasing option.
The result? Sharper details, smoother edges, and crisper visuals across every model. Combined with the new toeboard text feature, your client presentations now look more polished and professional than ever.
What Else Is New?
Beyond the headline features, there is also a wide range of refinements:
- 4-Leg Compact Half-Bay Stairway Enhancement:
Control stairway access widths on half-bays to work in confined areas. Now you can modify adjacent bay spacing to fit your actual site constraints without redesigning your entire scaffold layout. - Ladder Access Point Customization: Skip access points, such as swing gates or hatch decks, when skipping ladders for alternate climbing access points. This simplifies your designs, reduces unnecessary material in your material list, and lets you design cleaner access solutions tailored to your specific scaffolding configuration.
- Bill of Materials Persistence:
Your BOM layout now saves automatically between sessions so customized column widths, sorting, and filters persist until you reset them. Spend less time reformatting and more time on the job. - Improved CAD Import: When importing CAD drawings, the view automatically starts in orthogonal (non-perspective) mode, this allows for better alignment with architectural plans right out of the gate, no adjustments needed to match your blueprint scale.
Why These Updates Matter
These updates are designed to remove friction in the areas that slow scaffold design teams down: repeated setup, manual adjustments, and back-and-forth during review.
Faster, Clearer Client Reviews Across Multiple Projects
Professional toeboard branding and improved 3D rendering help ensure each design is easy to read and visually consistent. This clarity makes communicating your design to clients easier.
When your designs are shared through our free design visualization app, Avontus Viewer, the process becomes more flexible. Instead of relying on static drawings, stakeholders can open the model, navigate in 3D, and review details on their own time—without needing Designer.
That typically leads to:
- clearer customer communication
- more productive internal discussions
Less Rework When Moving Between Projects
Switching between jobs can mean redoing the same setup work, such as in the bill of materials.
With BOM layout persistence, your preferred column order, filters, and formatting stay in place across sessions. Instead of adjusting your layout for each project, you can move directly to exporting your design and material list.
More Control in Complex or Repetitive Layouts
Standard Designer planking logic works well most of the time but there are situations where detailed plank customization is needed. Stair landings, turnarounds, and constrained areas, for example, may require specific plank choices.
Custom planking gives you the ability to define those requirements by bay or individual bay level. You can guide the system with your preferred widths or materials while still benefiting from automated placement.
Across similar structures or repeated layouts, this setting makes it easier to apply consistent design intent without adjusting each scaffold drawing’s settings.
Cleaner Starts When Working from CAD
Importing 3D models into Designer is often the first step in a project, and small scaling issues can slow everything that follows.
Starting in an orthogonal (non-perspective) view helps align scaffolding with the source drawings from the outset. That reduces the need for adjustments and makes it easier to begin modeling with the correct scale and orientation.
When you’re working across multiple drawings or buildings, that consistency helps keep projects moving without unnecessary setup time.
→ See how this works in your workflow
→ Get Avontus Viewer for FREE
FAQ
What’s new in this release of Avontus Designer?
This update introduces three major features: custom planking (specify exact plank types and widths per bay), toeboard text branding (add your company name to every toeboard for professional presentation and asset protection), and enhanced 3D rendering with anti-aliasing (sharper, crisper visuals at print scale). There are also smaller improvements like BOM format persistence, improved CAD import, and better stairway turnaround control. Together, these features reduce manual setup work and give you more control over designs.
What is custom planking and when would I need it?
Custom planking lets you specify exact plank types and widths for individual bays instead of relying on the default widest-plank-first algorithm. You’d use it for specialized situations like stairway turnarounds, landings, or confined spaces, where certain areas need narrow planks or specific materials. This gives you precision control without redesigning your entire scaffold.
How does toeboard text branding protect my designs from theft?
When you add your company name to your toeboards in Designer, you add an extra layer professionalism to your presentation. Your branded toeboards make it clear your company owns the design. The text appears on all exports (3D PDF, DWG, Avontus Viewer) so it’s visible in every format.
Will toeboard text remain legible when I export to PDF or DWG?
Yes, absolutely. One key benefit of the toeboard text feature is perfect legibility at any print scale. Whether you export to PDF or DWG or present in Avontus Viewer, the text stays crisp and readable. This ensures your branded toeboards look professional in every format your clients receive.
How much time can the features save me on complex projects?
Time savings depend on your project type. Teams working with specialized bays (stairways, turnarounds, confined spaces) save hours eliminating manual plank adjustment. BOM format persistence saves time on repetitive formatting across projects. Automatic toeboard text eliminates manual annotation. Better CAD import speeds up design startup.
What does the enhanced anti-aliasing rendering do?
Enhanced anti-aliasing smooths jagged edges and sharpens text in your 3D models. This makes small details like toeboard labels, dimensions, and fine geometry look crisp and professional. The result is more polished designs that impress clients and look better in presentations. It’s especially useful when presenting to stakeholders: cleaner visuals build confidence in your designs and can speed up approvals.
Can I apply custom plank settings to multiple similar scaffolds?
Yes. Once you define custom plank specifications for a particular configuration, those settings persist and can be reused across similar structures. This is especially helpful when designing repetitive layouts on large sites. You define the specifications once, and they’re available for similar projects going forward—eliminating repeated setup work.
Are these features compatible with Avontus ScaffoldIQ™?
Yes. Designer drawings export perfectly to ScaffoldIQ, which you can use to track the status of your scaffolds. The combination of precise designs and live site visibility delivers operational excellence at scale.
