In tutorial 1 we will be understanding the basic layout and controls of the software as well as optimising our settings so that they are correct as per project requirements.


This includes:

  1. User interface (home)
  2. User interface (designer)
  3. Mouse controls
  4. Project settings

User Interface (Home)

When you are brought into the software you will be presented with the home page. Here you can make changes to your account settings (1), view your recent projects (2), start from template files (3) and access additional resources (4).



To start a new project we will click Preset Example 1. Preset Example 1 is a Neara template file that gives you a standard library of constructions to start designing.


User Interface (Designer)

Once you have clicked on the template file you will be brought to an empty design screen as such.



The designer interface can be segmented into 3 parts:

  1. Design tools (1)
  2. Menu bar (2)
  3. Views (3)


Mouse Controls

To control your camera you can do the following:

  1. Zoom: to zoom in and out use your scroll wheel (on your computer's mouse). Note that if you do not have a mouse, you will need to zoom in and out using two fingers on the touchpad. Sliding two fingers further apart on the touchpad will enable you to zoom in and sliding two fingers closer together will enable you to zoom out. 
  2. Change angle: to change the angle of your view hold right-click and drag your mouse.
  3. Pan: to pan your camera click and hold the scroll wheel and move your mouse


Project Settings

Before we start designing, we have to do some housekeeping. There are settings that we can define before we start our project to optimize Neara to your requirements.


  1. US Customary vs Metric (Units): To change your units select Project > Design Settings and at the bottom, you can interchange between US Customary and Metric.
  2. Clearance Requirements: To set your clearance requirements select Clearances. You can define different clearance lines here - these appear in your profile view as a solid blue line. 
  3. Environments:  Here you are able to create new environments (add environments) and edit fields as required. You can see that each environment has a corresponding colour which will become useful when observing sag lines and blowout lines.
  4. Library: This is where you can create your poles, conductors, constructions and components. We will go through this shortly.


Now that we have optimized our project area make sure to export these settings as a file so that we have saved this starting point for future projects. You can do this by selecting project > export to model file.


Now we can progress to tutorial 2.