8020 Aluminum Rig Planner

Design your 8020 (or 4040) aluminum sim racing rig right in the browser. Enter your height, pick a driving posture, and the planner generates a complete frame layout with an optimized cut list — so you know exactly which extrusion lengths to buy and cut before spending a cent.

The planner is split into a 3D preview on the left and a settings panel on the right (stacked on mobile). Below the 3D preview sits the cut-list optimizer panel showing the visual bar layout and purchase summary.

Every change you make is saved into the page URL automatically, so you can bookmark or share your current design at any time.

The General pane at the top of the settings panel controls visual options that do not affect the rig geometry itself:

• Finish — choose between Black, Silver, or a Custom color for the extrusion profiles shown in the 3D view.
• Endcaps — toggle end-cap rendering on or off. End caps are included in the cut list when visible.
• Advanced — when enabled, a Posture Target folder appears in the Posture pane showing the ergonomic target ranges used by the solver. You can tweak these ranges to fine-tune how the optimizer places your pedals, steering column, and monitor.

The Posture pane contains a Preset dropdown and a Height slider.

Presets are pre-configured driving postures based on real motorsport seating positions:

When you pick one of the four named presets the planner automatically solves the steering column distance, base length, pedal tray position, and pedal heights to hit the target ergonomic ranges for that posture at your specified height. Changing the Height slider re-solves the entire layout, so all beams scale proportionally to your body measurements.

Behind every named preset is a multi-pass numerical solver that:

1. Seeds an initial rig layout from anthropometric ratios derived from your height.
2. Iterates through progressively finer step sizes, testing neighbour positions for the steering column base height, steering column distance, pedal tray distance, and brake offset.
3. Scores each candidate against a posture report that measures joint angles (elbow bend, knee bend, ankle bend, foot angle, torso-to-thigh angle) and sight lines (eye to wheel top, eye to monitor midpoint). Each metric has a target range; deviations and out-of-range values are penalized.
4. Refines pedal tray distance to minimize foot-contact error, ensuring the driver’s feet properly reach the pedal faces.
5. Places the base frame around the solved pedal tray position, clamping everything to feasible dimension limits.

The result is a layout where joint angles fall within ergonomically comfortable ranges and the driver’s body posture correctly matches the chosen motorsport discipline.

If you enable the Advanced toggle in the General pane, a Posture Target folder appears where you can adjust the acceptable min/max ranges for each metric (elbow bend, knee bend, etc.). Narrowing or widening these ranges changes the solver’s search targets; clicking the Optimize button on the 3D view re-runs the solver with your custom ranges.

Selecting the Custom preset — or manually editing any rig dimension while a named preset is active — switches the planner to Custom mode. In this mode:

• The solver stops overriding dimensions. Every slider is fully unlocked.
• You can modify each module independently via the Rig Settings pane, which is organized into folders:
  • Base — overall frame length, width, seat base depth, and inner beam spacing (the two longitudinal rails the seat mounts to).
  • Seat — seat pan height, forward/backward position offset, seat pan length, seat angle, and backrest angle.
  • Steering Column — column height, distance from the seat, and base height.
  • Wheel — steering wheel diameter, tilt angle, vertical offset, and horizontal offset from the column top.
  • Pedal Tray — tray depth and distance from the seat.
  • Pedals — individual pedal length, angle, height, horizontal offset, and per-pedal side offsets (accelerator, brake, clutch).
  • Monitor — display size, aspect ratio, curvature, tilt, target FOV, and resulting distance from the driver’s eyes. The monitor height from the rig base can also be set manually.
• Each folder has a Reset button that restores those values to the solver’s defaults for the current height.
• Switching back to a named preset re-runs the solver and overwrites Custom values.

Below the 3D preview the Cut Optimizer Panel shows two views:

1. Visual Cut Layout — a bar diagram showing exactly which pieces are cut from each purchased stock bar. Hovering a row in the cut list highlights the corresponding beams in the 3D view (and vice versa). Each bar displays its profile type (80×40 or 40×40), pieces with labelled lengths, kerf gaps, and any leftover waste.

2. Purchase Summary — a table listing how many bars of each stock length to buy, their material cost, shipping cost, total weight, and grand total.

The Cutlist Optimizer pane in the settings panel controls how the optimizer assigns pieces to stock bars:

Inside the Stock Configuration folder you define the available stock lengths and their prices — separately for 80×40 and 40×40 profiles. By default, 1 m and 2 m options are provided for each profile. Use the Add stock length button to add more options, or remove lengths you cannot source. The optimizer considers all defined stock options and picks the combination that best matches your chosen optimization mode.

The Cut Optimizer Panel contains an Export button. Clicking it opens a menu where you can select which sections to include:

• 3D Image — a snapshot of the current 3D view.
• Visual Cut Layout — the bar diagram.
• Purchase Summary — the cost table.

Selecting at least one section and confirming opens a new browser tab with a print-ready HTML document. Use your browser’s Print → Save as PDF (or Ctrl/Cmd+P) to save or print the plan. The exported document includes your current rig dimensions, cut assignments, and cost breakdown — everything a metal supplier or workshop needs to prepare your order.