There are important rules for manipulating analytical members, especially if you want to treat the physical and analytical members separately.

• Copy, delete, and rotate physical and analytical members - When you copy, delete, or rotate a physical member, the analytical member will follow. The physical member is the driver, so be sure to copy, delete, or rotate the physical member and not the analytical member. If you are in a view where only the analytical members are displayed, change your view to one where you can select the physical member.
• Move entire element - To move an entire element (both ends of both the physical and analytical members), use the Move tool, and make sure you select the physical element. The analytical element will follow.
• Move one end of element - To move one end of either a physical or analytical member, use Modify Member End . Use this tool to "clean up" your work prior to sending your data to an analysis program.
• Move a node of an analytical member - To move a node of an analytical member, use Modify Member End tool. Even though a node can be in the center of the analytical member, it is still recognized as an end.
  Note: Moving a node is an associative command. All members connected to it move as well. So if you have a three-point intersection of analytical members and select the single node connecting them, you "stretch" all three analytical members as you move the node.
  Important: OpenBuildings Station Designer reuses nodes. If you have two members that are not joined and you join them, the joining node of the moved element disappears. An orphaned node will never occur. If you delete the analytical member, the nodes disappear as well. Another factor is node tolerance. This value is set in the Structural Analysis Preferences . If you create two nodes that are within this tolerance distance, they are automatically joined and the joining node disappears. The physical members are not affected by the tolerance distance, so even though analytical members may be joined, the physical members are not.
  Note: Physical members are not associative. If you select a node and move the analytical members, the physical members do not move.