The Nodal Results Translator is a standalone application that translates the displacement output file from the native binary format used by Autodesk Simulation to a text format, or binary to binary, or text to binary, or text to text format. In the process, you can select which load cases and nodes are output, and control which of the 6 values (and 2 computed values) are written, and optionally adjusted each of the 6 values by a user entered value. Displacement output files, also known as nodal results, include items such as displacement and rotation (stress analysis), temperature (heat transfer analysis), and voltage (electrostatic analysis).
General Note: The terms Time step and Mode shape can be substituted for the term Load case throughout this documentation and throughout the Nodal Results Translator. In all cases, the term represents the results of the model at a particular instance or a discrete set of related results.
Run The Program
There are four methods of running the program.
- From the Results environment, use Results Options
Other Tools Nodal Results Translator. - Double-click the executable file, TranDO_i.exe, using My Computer or Windows Explorer.
- From the Window's Start Run window or a DOS command prompt, typedrive:\path\TranDO_i.exe
- For an automatic run, type the following from the Window's Start Run window, a DOS command prompt, or another application: drive:\path\TranDO_i recall_file.lcn
where drive: is the drive containing the program and \path\TranDO_i is the complete folder name containing the program. The first methods will run the program interactively, so you can specify the input through the user interface. The last method runs the program automatically by reading the input from the recall file. Include quotation marks (““) if the .LCN file name includes spaces.
The last method is equivalent to starting the application, clicking the Load Input button to specify the input on the three tabs, clicking the Create File button to translate the existing file to the new results file, and clicking the Exit button. TranDO_i runs by itself and exits. Provided the recall file is correct, no user interaction is required to translate the file. Thus, the last option can be used to run TranDO_i from other programs to automatically extract results. Further details are given in the Appendices.
Use the Program
When using the Nodal Results Translator interactively, specify the input on each of the tabs, working from left to right. Then click the Create File button to perform the translation.
Common Input on Main Screen
The following buttons are on the main interface of the Nodal Results Translator and are available at any time (as noted).
- Load Input button: Click this button to retrieve or load the previously saved input for the three tabs: the existing input file, the load cases and nodes to output, the output file, and the associated options. This option would generally be used before specifying any input; loading the input from a file will overwrite any input you specified manually.
When clicked, you are prompted for a filename. The file can be created by saving the input from a previous run (see Save Input below), or by manually creating the text file (see details in the Appendix Creating the LCN File).
- Save Input button: After all the input is specified, it can be saved to a text file (LCN file) by clicking the Save Input button. This option is typically used at the end of the process and to save the input that the Nodal Results Translator uses. If the translation process is a one time operation, then there is no need to save the input. If the same settings will be used repeatedly, or if only a few settings will change from one time to another, then saving the input and using the Load Input can save time.
Only the input used for the translation will be saved in the LCN file. For example, any load case spreadsheet input would not be used if the load case list is specified (see Specify Cases, All Nodes on the Load Case and Node Output Tab). Once the input has been stored, it can be retrieved with the Load Input button when running interactively or specified on the command line when running automatically (see Running The Program above).
- Create File button: This button is active after all the input has been specified. Click it to translate the existing results file to the new results file. During the process of creating the new results file, a progress bar will appear in a separate window. Click the Stop button on the progress bar window to terminate the translation at the current point. If stopped, the new results file will be partially created.
Only valid load cases and node numbers will be translated during the Create File process. If an invalid number is specified in the spreadsheet, it is corrected to the minimum or maximum accepted value. For example, you may be running an MES analysis one step at a time, checking the deflections, adjusting the loads accordingly, and resuming the analysis for the next time step. Since the last time step changes after each resume, you may be thinking that the time step number to output by the Nodal Results Translator would need to be changed each time. Not necessary. You create a recall input file (.LCN) in which the Nodal Results Translator is instructed to output the results for some large time step, such as step 30000. (Note: 30000 is the largest load case/time step entry that the Nodal Results Translator can handle.) When the Nodal Results Translator is ran after each MES restart analysis, it corrects the time step from 30000 to the actual last step in the analysis. See the Examples in the Appendix.
After the translation is completed, some options will be grayed out. The window will display what was just translated and with what options, but you must select the grayed out options before the Create File button is activate again.