RE-Bar is designed to make the production and alteration of reinforced concrete detail drawings and bar bending schedules as easy as possible. Instead of choosing a bar shape code, and then placing it on the drawing, each bar is defined in terms of the number of legs it has, and also in terms of its ends. Thus a single legged bar may have straight ends (a straight bar), but it may be alternatively have standard bends or hooks at the extremities. If the bar size is altered, then the lengths and bending radii of the hooks will change as well, reducing the chance of error when changing a drawing.

Reinforcing bars are associated with the lines defining the concrete structure to be detailed. If the outline shape is modified, the associated bars are also automatically modified to maintain their relative positions. As this happens, the bar labels move with the bar, and the bar schedule information is also updated to reflect the new dimensions.

If a new detail is to be drawn that is similar to an existing one, it is easy to make a copy of the existing drawing, and then modify the outlines of the concrete, while the program automatically changes the reinforcement, labels and scheduling information.

When drawings are started, they should be drawn at 1:1 in model space, so that the dimensions of the concrete outlines are in the same units as the dimensions of the standard reinforcement. The schedule produced will also be given in these units.