When you draw a shape and specify its material properties, as each change is made the sectional properties are automatically recalculated and displayed in the Properties window

This window can display a number of tables containing various subsets of the properties computed by Section Maker.

The last row in most of the tables shown in the Properties Window displays the Standard Section shape that Section Maker has determined is displayed in the Shape Window. This shape is used as the basis for estimating some of the section properties of the sections. See Chapter 4 for further details on how Section Maker computes section properties.

If you see properties that are displayed in red it means that the shape drawn in the Shape Window is not properly constructed and the section properties have not been computed correctly. See the Validating the Shape section that follows this section for the rules required to ensure the section properties will be computed correctly.