Moving Load Moving in Global Vertical Direction

I have just uploaded a macro on Bentley Communities, https://communities.bentley.com/products/ram-staad/b/analysis_and_design_blog/posts/moving-loads-with-openstaad to provide a method for you to achieve this. Being an OpenSTAAD macro, you are free to make any changes you would like to have to make it work differently.

Carlos, your summary and your idea sounds good. Instead of node loads, I would say that it is point loads/concentrated loads at a certain point (either node or location on a beam). If the point load falls on a node, then it is a node load, and if it falls on a beam then a concentrated point load on the beam, but maybe that is just arguing over semantics. I like the idea of an OpenSTAAD Macro that would be part of STAAD.Pro and would add the loads to the model which could be modified after the fact.

Than you for posting this idea. Could I suggest the following as perhaps an alternative way of describing this idea. Could a tool be developed that took a definition of a collection of node loads relative to a specified origin, each with a given (dx,dy,dz), a motion vector (DX,DY,DZ), a number of steps, and a starting load case number. If on each step a load lands on a node, it will be assigned to that node, otherwise it checks to see if it lands on a beam, and if so assigns it as a concentrated load on the beam, otherwise, it reports as the load is not assigned to the structure in that load case. A future project would be to check if the loads failed to land on a node or beam, it would then check if it lands on a plate, then solid. Rather than have this as a black box routine as is the case with the current moving load, it could be made as a tool to add loads in the model which can be modified after the fact. That would seem an ideal task for an OpenSTAAD Macro dont you?