The File menu is a typical menu of all programs with some particularity of WinTess3. It consists of the following submenus:

 
Open

It serves to open a file previously saved with the program WinTess3 (.tes). The file is saved with the state that the program was in: Form finding, analysis or patterning. If there is a structure on the screen which has not been saved, WinTess3 will ask us if we want to save it.

 
New file

This submenu opens another range of possibilities for creating new structures that can be analyzed with WinTess3.

If there is a structure on the screen that has not been saved, WinTess3 will ask us if you want to save it.

 
Insert & Merge

This submenu opens an existing .tes file and merge its principal objects: nodes, bars and elements with the structure on the screen. Each structure uses its own coordinate system so that it is absolutely necessary that both match. If not, we would have to change (before Insert & Merge) the coordinate system of the structure on the screen (via the menu Global | Translation, rotation and scaling), in order to match.

See the blog post: Creating a complex model

 
Save

To save the file that we have on the screen.
It is assumed that you already have a file name. If not, we will use the next submenu: Save as

 
Save as

To save the file that we have on the screen with a different name. Remember that you must have the extension .tes.

 
Import DXF

This menu brings up a window for opening files with .dxf extension. If there is a structure on the screen that has not been saved, WinTess3 will ask us if we want to save it.
Once the .dxf file is selected, layers we want to import are defined in the next window.

This option is designed to import structures that have been exported with the Export DXF menu, as it saves different objects in different layers in order to be recovered.
However, it is clear that if you want to import something created with another CAD program and saved in DXF format, it must not be any problem. The following rules should be taken into account:

  1. The units of the CAD file can be meters (m), centimetres (cm) or millimetres (mm).
  2. Only 2D and 3D LINE (line),  POINT (points), 3DFACE (triangles in 3D) and some polylines objects will be read.

Once the file has been read (if it is very long we can interrupt its reading by pressing ESC) we get the following window:

In that window we will write the title of the structure that has been imported. The number of the node to be used as the coordinate origin. By default it will be node number 1, but if we want to use the coordinate origin of the DXF itself, we leave this box blank. This change of origin of coordinates can be done later at any time.

You are then asked if you want to create bars from the imported 3D-faces.These bars would be added to those that have already been read directly.

Finally, it asks the state in which WinTess will be left after reading the file DXF: In Form Finding, in Analysis or in Patterning.If you choose Analysis, you can choose between “Renumber all nodes” or not. This action can be performed later at any time.

See the blog post: WinTess3 and DXF files

 
Export DXF

This menu leads to the window of exporting files with the .dxf extension.
Here, it asks the layers to be exported. WinTess exports the elements in different layers to easier post manipulation by the user.
Basically the following are exported:

  1. lines representing the initial form as LINE
  2. lines representing the final form as LINE
  3. elements as 3DFACE
  4. nodes that do not belong to any bar: geodesic, auxiliary, etc. as POINT

The user can decide which units will be used: m, cm or mm.

See the blog post: WinTess3 and DXF files.

 
Edit data file

This menu opens the .tes file that contains the structure on the screen in an editor.
We can modify this file, but if you do not know how to do, you may end up in a corrupted file and cannot open it correctly later.

If we do make changes, we must save when exit, otherwise would not serve anything.
After saving, WinTess3 does not reopen it therefore what we see on the screen is the same as what we had before editing. If you want to update we need to re-open the file.

 
Exit

It is a typical menu to exit the program. If the structure has been modified and you have not saved your changes, WinTess3 will ask if we want to save the changes or not, or if we wish, we can cancel the exit command.

 
Recently opened files

Like most of the programs, WinTess3 offers the possibility to open without having to search for any of the last ten opened or saved files.