If you go to File:Export there are some choices there to export the geometry of the model outside RISA.

I would think that RAM, etc. could import the DXF file or whatever and use that - but the loads, design criteria, etc. may not transmit out.

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Well, it's easier to go from STAAD to RISA than the other way round. RISA has the ability to read a STAAD file, but I don't think STAAD has the ability to read a RISA file directly. The way I see it you have three good possibilities depending on what the other programs import:

1) RISA has a CIS/2 translator available as a free download on our website. You could use this neutral file format as a means of importing into those other programs.

2) You could export the model into Revit then got to STAAD/ RAM from there if their Revit import is robust.

3) RISA can also export an SDNF file. So, if those other program can import that type of file you might have some luck.

With most of these options, I suspect that you can get the basic model and members to come over. But, it may be tricky getting the loading to convert over.

I hope the above suggestions help.

On an unrelated note: I'd love to know if there was one or two particular reasons why your company went away from RISA. We try hard to keep our existing customers, so any insights you can give me about the cause could obviously help us in the future.

The problem we have is that we no longer have access to Risa 3D, so anything that requires opening and directly exporting out of Risa is out of the question.
Are there any files that open .r3d directly?

Josh, as far as I know, the reason we went away from Risa was cost. But this was around 5 years ago, and before I was at the company.

Did you destroy your previous copies of the program. The best part about Risa (especially the older versions) is it was a outright purchased program, so as long as you still have the installation information and the program key you can use it for as long as you'd like without upgrading.

The CIS/2 translator is a free utility available on our website and it will convert an *.r3d file into the CIS/2 format. So, that may be your best option. There may be some caveats to that, however, depending on how old the file it. If the file is older than version 5.5, I can't guarantee anything as that used a different file format. But, for all the relatively recent versions of the program, the CIS/2 translator should work fine.

RISA files are really just ASCII text files with a keyword based file format. As such, we have users who have created their own 3rd party programs to create files that can be opened in RISA. The opposite can be done as well. Where a user writes a program that will read the RISA data so that it can be converted into another format.

Thank you Josh, that translator managed to get the file into a usable format.