In traditional CAE tools, comparing results from multiple analyses can be daunting. The complexity of having to manually set up each view from every analysis in the exactly the same manner and then compare them side-by-side makes this a challenging process.
Fortunately, Autodesk Simulation CFD has pioneered a better way: the Design Review Center. The Design Review Center is an engineering review on your desktop:
- Prepare for the review by creating interesting and insightful results views on one of the Scenarios in your Design Study.
- Compare your results for the entire Design Study, quickly and easily. Each result image is shown in a consistent way for every Scenario.
- Conclude the review by understanding how each Scenario performs, and by selecting the one that satisfies the design criteria.
The Design Review Center is structured to allow simultaneous comparison of many Scenarios. This means that it is easy to compare results from dozens of Scenarios at a time.
An example of the benefit of the Design Review Center is a design study of a pressure relief valve. Several designs were evaluated, each with a slight variation of the shape of the flow passage. The objective was to minimize pressure drop and flow swirl.
After running the Scenarios, a cutting plane showing pressure and particle traces was created, and the view opened in the Design Review Center. The results were presented on every Scenario in the study, making it easy to select the design that produced the best results.
Using the Design Review Center
- Create your results view using the tools in the Results Visualization task.
- To save the view as a Summary image, right click off the model, and click Capture summary image. This adds it to the Design Review Center branch of the Decision Center.
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In the Decision Center (on the Design Study bar), right click on the Design Review Center branch, and click Update all images (This maps all Summary Images to all scenarios.)
Note: To update an individual image, right click on its branch, and click Update images. This can save time if there are several Summary Images in your design study.Note: By default, each Summary Image shows results from all scenarios. To select specific scenarios for a Summary Image, right click on its branch, and pick Select scenarios... Select only the scenarios you wish to compare from the list.In the Design Review Center tab of the Output Bar, the image from each scenario is shown. If a scenario has not been run or needs to be updated, a place-holder image is shown instead of the actual image.
- The first image is shown in the Graphics window. To show the others, left click on each and drag into the graphics window.
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To compare the views, use the Design Review Center slider and animation controls. The Design Review Center Mode is now active.
- To adjust the legend settings, right click on the legend, and select Options...
Part appearance
A summary image records the current appearance of all parts in the active design. When a summary image is updated, the appearance of every part is applied to the other scenarios in the design study. If a scenario contains parts that are not in the captured scenario, they are displayed with a default appearance.
The viewport on the left contains the captured image; the viewport on the right contains a scenario with an additional part (displayed as shaded):
To change the appearance of a model or a specific part, use the standard appearance controls in the main menu or right click menu, respectively.
Notes:
- Appearance changes are stored with the Summary Image. If resume standard interaction and then invoke the Design Review Center again, parts appear with the latest modifications. The same applies if Autodesk Simulation CFD is exited and opened in a subsequent session.
- When a summary image is updated, all appearance modifications are removed, and the image is reset to its as-captured appearance. (The exception is for parts that do not exist in the originally captured image, as shown above.)
- To preserve appearance modifications when updating a summary image, right click on the thumbnail, and select Lock.
- To reset the summary image to its initial appearance, right click on the thumbnail, and select Reset.
- To reset the summary image to its appearance after the latest update, right click on the thumbnail, and select Reset.
To return to interactive results visualization:
- Click the Setup or Results tabs from the Ribbon.
Side-by-Side Viewing
By default, a single view-port is active, and results are compared by flipping between views with the Design Review Center controls. This means that results from only one scenario are visible at a time. An alternative workflow is to compare results from different scenarios side-by-side. In many situations, this provides a more convenient way to compare results, especially when the differences are subtle.
To compare result sets side-by-side:
- Click View (tab) > Windows (panel) > Viewports. Select one of the Multi-View options from the menu (Vertical Split, Horizontal Split, etc.)
- Change the image in a view port by dragging an image from the Design Review Center tab into one of the view ports.
The viewport with the Autodesk Simulation CFD icon in the lower right corner is the active view, and can be navigated. To activate a different viewport, simply click on it. To navigate multiple views together, click View (tab) > Windows (panel) > Link Views.