Upload your drawings and within 12 hours you'll have a free estimate. Move forward, and we convert your PDF plans into a full 3D structural model — with every calculation your city requires, faster than any traditional engineering process.

There's a step in every construction project that most clients never see and that most architects would prefer not to think about too long: the gap between design intent and structural reality. A set of drawings leaves the architect's office containing walls, openings, spans, and intent — and somewhere between that document and the first board being cut, an engineer has to translate all of it into a buildable structural framing scheme. That process takes time, costs money, and happens late in the design cycle, when changes are expensive.

Fraaime closes that gap — and it starts with something much simpler than a traditional engineering engagement.

Step 1 — Upload Your Plans, Get a Free Estimate in 12 Hours

The process begins with a single action: you upload your architectural drawings. That's it. No initial meeting. No retainer. No weeks-long scoping process. Within 12 hours, you receive a free price estimate for your complete precision framing package.

This estimate is based on a real review of your plans — not a per-square-foot rule of thumb or a bracket range. It reflects the actual geometry, structural complexity, and material requirements of your specific project. You get a clear number you can put into your budget before committing to anything.

This step alone changes the economics of early-stage project planning. Structural framing costs are often one of the last things a developer or builder gets clarity on — because traditional engineering firms require a paid engagement before they'll produce a meaningful estimate. Fraaime removes that barrier entirely. The estimate is free. The decision to move forward is yours.

Understanding structural costs at the early design stage — before decisions are locked — is one of the most valuable things a builder or developer can have. Fraaime makes that available for free, within a working day.

Step 2 — We Convert Your PDF Into a Full 3D Structural Model

When you decide to move forward, the real engineering work begins. Fraaime's AI takes your PDF architectural plans and converts them into a complete 3D metal framing model — a precise digital representation of your building's entire structural system.

This isn't a visualization tool or a rendering. It's a structural model in the engineering sense: every stud, beam, header, connection point, and load path is modeled in three dimensions, positioned correctly relative to the architecture, and sized appropriately for the loads it needs to carry.

The AI reads the geometry of your plans with a level of detail that would take a human engineer hours to work through manually. It identifies bearing versus non-bearing walls, locates point loads, maps vertical load paths from roof to foundation, and determines the structural hierarchy of the entire building. Openings — doors, windows, penetrations — are accounted for with correct header sizing. Floor levels, ceiling heights, and roof geometry are incorporated into a unified model that reflects the building as it will actually be built.

AI tools for structural analysis — incorporating seismic load automation, wind surface pressure calculation, and real-time structural feedback — are now standard across engineering software. What Fraaime adds is the application of that capability specifically to the framing problem: converting architectural intent into a buildable, precision-manufactured structural package, faster than any traditional engineering process.

Site-Specific Structural Calculations

A 3D model alone isn't enough. The structural calculations that a city requires for a building permit aren't generic — they're specific to where the building sits. Wind loads depend on local wind speed data and building height. Seismic requirements depend on the building's geographic zone and the lateral force resistance system designed into the structure. Climate zone determines insulation strategy, which affects how the framing cavity is configured. Every jurisdiction has its own building code, and every calculation needs to demonstrate compliance with it.

Fraaime applies all of these variables to every project. The structural calculations produced aren't illustrative — they're the actual engineering documentation your city requires to issue a building permit. Load path analysis, bearing specifications, shear wall design, connection details — everything a licensed structural engineer would produce is included in the package.

This is where the speed advantage becomes most visible. A traditional structural engineering process — from initial engagement to stamped calculations ready for submission — can take weeks. Fraaime's AI-driven process is faster because the calculation logic is built into the system: your plans are the input, and city-ready structural documentation is the output, without the back-and-forth of a conventional engineering engagement.

What You Receive at the End

1 — Complete 3D framing model

A full three-dimensional structural model of your building — every metal framing element positioned, sized, and connected correctly.

2 — Exact material takeoff

A precise list of every piece of material in the frame — quantity, dimension, grade — with no waste buffer, because there are no guesses.

3 — City-ready structural calculations

All the structural engineering documentation your city requires for permit submission — load analysis, compliance verification, connection details.

4 — Ready-to-install framing package

Pre-cut, pre-engineered framing elements that your crew assembles on site — no field measuring, no field cutting, no field calculation.

What This Changes for Architects and Builders

For architects, the timing of structural feedback changes the design process. Conventionally, structural input arrives weeks after design decisions have been made — which means late-stage changes are expensive, coordination rounds are lengthy, and the structural system often constrains design choices rather than enabling them.

With Fraaime, that feedback is available from the moment you have a set of drawings to share. A schematic-stage document is enough to get started. The estimate gives you real structural cost data early, when budget decisions are still flexible. The full package, when you're ready for it, gives you city-ready documentation without adding a separate engineering firm to your project team.

For builders, the change is operational. The framing crew that shows up to site isn't there to measure, mark, and cut — they're there to assemble a pre-engineered system to ±1.0 mm tolerance. The result is a frame that every finishing trade behind it can work against with confidence — plumb, square, and exactly where the plans say it should be.

The Fraaime Process