What's new

The main changes in each version of vada, for the engineers who use it. The roadmap above is what is planned next.

Roadmap

Planned work, shaped by pilot feedback. Items move down into a version below as they ship.

More than one arch, issued directly. Multi-span designs inside the design envelope will issue like any other, rather than going to an engineering check first.
A wider span range, beyond the spans that issue without an engineering check today.
Masonry and material hatching on the drawings.
CAD and 3D exports: the drawings as DXF to edit in CAD, and the model as IFC.
A priced bill of quantities: enter your own unit rates, and the pack's bill comes out priced and totalled.
A formwork design sheet: the centring truss designed and detailed, not only set out in plan.
A site-context sheet: an aerial view of the crossing's surroundings, with the settlements, roads and watercourses named.
Construction-file sheets beyond the drawings: environmental management, health and safety, signage, and an inspection schedule.
Notifications when a design is waiting for you, so an approver does not have to open the dashboard to find out.
Archiving a design you have abandoned, so your project list shows what you are working on.
Quantities for costing: the bill of quantities on its own, for quantity surveyors and contractors pricing a bid.

*September and October 2026*

Every pack states the basis it was designed to, with its departures beside it, and the rating figure an independent assessment gives for the same span where one exists.
Checks you can read, and every value checked. Each check appears on its own scale with its own limit on it, and the three kinds of result are told apart; and every value you enter is checked on the server, with the field named as it is on the form, its range, and where that range comes from.
The site step works from one benchmark: every level on the drawings is measured from a datum you name, with river, seasonal gully and dry crossings, and an optional clearance gauge under the arch.
A note on the bill of quantities and the excavation plan: cut volumes for approach cuts deeper than about 1 m are an underestimate, so verify them against surveyed cross-sections of the approaches before pricing.
A correction that changes issued results. The foundation was checked against the worst of several arch states and is now checked against one coherent state, with the approach embankment credited and two construction stages verified. Results and printed preconditions change on configurations with an end abutment. When this happens, any holder of an affected pack is told directly.

*July to September 2026*

Every licensed design is rated: a thrust-line limit analysis finds the heaviest single axle the arch can carry, judged against CS454 with its single global factor.
The foundation is screened to EC7: the design table's footprint is verified rather than resized, and the founding depth is resolved from scour, the competent stratum, frost and a minimum, with its governing reason named.
A geotechnical step, with the ground model and the scour and groundwater lines drawn on your own survey, and four new sheets: a structural section carrying the thrust line and the reactions, two calculation notes, and the key to every symbol in the pack.
A correction that changes issued ratings. The thrust line could follow an idealised curve crediting masonry beyond the real abutment, so some Roman ratings were optimistic. It now follows the profile the drawings use, and the rated axle falls on Roman spans that relied on it, by about a quarter at 6 m and more at 4 m. When this happens, any holder of an affected pack is told directly.
A second correction, to a safety check. The founding-depth check compared a depth with a level in some configurations and now compares levels throughout, so a founding depth that was accepted before can now be refused as too shallow. When this happens, any holder of an affected pack is told directly.

*July 2026*

A licence held by an organisation, with designer, approver and viewer seats and a shared project allowance.
Under an organisation licence, a second engineer in the organisation approves each design before the stamped pack can be issued: submitted, approved or returned with a written change request, and every revision approved on its own.
Approvers inspect the whole design read-only, decide on the review step, and are done.
"Approved by" is stamped from the approving engineer's own account rather than typed.

*July 2026*

Designs that issue without an engineering check are single span, 1 to 10 m. It was 3 to 12 m.
Ten metres is one row above the largest span yet built under the programme that produced the design tables, which is 9 m. Longer spans are in the tables and in the assessment, and not yet in the built stock, so they take an engineering check.
A licence can include a set number of projects, and a project beyond it is refused with the reason.

*July 2026*

The waterway opening the bridge leaves is calculated while you design, beside the flow it has to pass.
The river cross-section is drawn as a surveyed graph, with the normal and flood levels on every sheet.

*July 2026*

One rendering path for the preview and the issued pack, so they cannot differ.
A reworked review step: live hydraulics, a grouped bill of quantities and a clearer revision table.
An organisation's own logo on its account and its drawings.
Accounts are provisioned rather than self-served, from this version on.

*July 2026*

The drawings and the quantity calculations for the pack are produced on the server rather than in the browser.
Title block version 2, with the bill of quantities as a sheet and a link back to the project.
A published Terms of Service.

*July 2026*

Accounts for licensed engineers, with a dashboard and a revision history for every project.
Each pack is built and stored on the server, so an issued revision is kept with its project.

*July 2026*

The eight-sheet construction drawing pack: sections, plans, an excavation plan and a materials bill of quantities.
Earthworks: road cuts through high ground, excavation volumes, and an earthworks balance.
Sidewalks, and toe ditches discharging to the water line.

*July 2026*

Road approaches that follow the ground, with their fill volumes measured.
Wing walls that follow the design rather than a fixed shape, and pier cutwaters.
A technical 3D view showing what is above ground solid and what is buried ghosted.

*July 2026*

Design onto a surveyed river cross-section: enter or draw the bed and the water levels, and the bridge fits the crossing.
The survey prints on the sheets.
A four-step wizard, and a preview you can look at without downloading.

*July 2026*

The parametric configurator: the geometry of the reference design in the browser, with a 3D view.
A live bill of quantities as you change the design.
A first dimensioned drawing pack, exported as a PDF.