View Tab

You can change the view and appearance of your model, as well as save views for future use. Most View menu items are available in the FEA Editor and Results environments.

The Navigate Panel

Select a pre-defined viewpoint:

1. Click View Navigate Orientation.
2. Select one of the 6 orthogonal views or choose Isometric or Axonometric. Or, select Reverse View to rotate the current view 180 degrees about the vertical axis of the screen.

Save and access custom model viewpoints

The <Current View> in the User-Defined Views dialog box is shown in the display area. If you rename this view, you also save the current view.

Save the current view as a new entry:

1. With the view in the appropriate orientation, click View Navigate User-defined Views.
2. Click <Current View> in the dialog box. The Rename button activates.
3. Click Rename, enter the appropriate view name, and click OK.

Replace an existing view with the current view:

1. With the view in the appropriate orientation, click View Navigate User-defined Views.
2. Click the existing view in the dialog box. The Save View button activates.
3. Click Save View and click OK.

Access or display a view:

1. Click View Navigate User-defined Views.
2. Click an existing view in the dialog box and click Apply View.
3. Click OK.

Rotate the model viewpoint

To rotate your model in the display area, do the following:

1. Click View Navigate Orbit.
2. Click anywhere in the active window and hold down the mouse button.
3. Drag the cursor around the screen to achieve the appropriate model orientation.

Tip:

• You can define a point about which to rotate your model. Right-click in the active window. If you are on a vertex, you can select Rotate on Vertex to define the vertex as the rotation center. You can select Rotate on Model Center to rotate about the centroid of the model. You can also select Specify Center of Rotation to specify a coordinate about which to rotate.
• Alternatively, you can rotate the model using the mouse buttons as defined in Options Mouse Options.
• To only rotate about one of the global axes, hold down the X, Y, or Z key. Keep the key depressed while you rotate the model.
• You can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to rotate the model about the perpendicular axes in the screen. Press the right or left arrow keys to rotate the model about the vertical axis . Press the up or down arrow keys to rotate the model about the horizontal axis. Press the S key while pressing the arrow keys to rotate the model about the axis normal to the screen. Press the X, Y, or Z keys to rotate about the respective axis. Each time you press an arrow key, the view rotates by an amount specified in Tools Options Graphics Rotation Increment.
• To control whether the shaded model or wireframe displays when you rotate the model, go to Options Setup When model is moving (FEA Editor environment). For the Results environment, use Result Options View No Shading When Moving Model.

Constrained Orbit: Use this alternative tool to constrain model viewpoint rotation to be about the vertical axis. By default, the Z-axis indicates the vertical direction, and the Top view is the looking down from the +Z direction. (See the View Options Tab page of the Options Dialog Box section).

Zoom views dynamically

To zoom in or out on your model, do the following:

1. Click View Navigate Zoom Zoom.
2. Click anywhere in the active window and hold down the mouse button.
3. Drag the cursor up or down to zoom in or out. Whether upward movement zooms in or out is defined under Options Mouse Options. The Mouse Options also define alternate key combinations to zoom using the mouse.

   Alternatively, you can press down the mouse wheel and the <Shift> key and drag the curser around the screen. You can also rotate the mouse wheel to zoom in or out.

Zoom views using a rectangle

To zoom in or out on your model, click View Navigate Zoom Window and define the opposite corners of your rectangle.

If the CTRL key is held, the mouse clicks define the center and corner of the rectangle.

Pan views dynamically

To pan your model view, do the following:

1. Click View Navigate Pan.
2. Click anywhere in the active window and hold down the mouse button.
3. Drag the cursor to pan the model view.

   Alternatively, you can pan the model using the mouse buttons defined in Options Mouse Options.

Previous and Next model views

To display previous viewpoints of your model, click View Navigate Previous View. Click View Navigate Next View to return to the more recent viewpoints.

Zoom models to windows

To display your entire model in the display, click View Navigate Enclose. The orientation of your model does not change.

Other Navigation Commands

• Set Pivot Center: Define the center point for zoom and rotate modes. Click this command and then click on the model at the desired pivot point location. Press <Esc> to terminate the command.
• Enclose (Fit All): Fit the entire model (visible surfaces, lines, and construction vertices) to the screen area.
• Lock to Current Selection:Select one or more objects and then click this command to lock the zoom window based on the selected objects. Click the command again to deactivate it. While enabled, the pivot point is in the center of the selected items when dragging the ViewCube to change the model viewpoint. A padlock icon appears next to the Home icon above the ViewCube. In addition, the pre-defined views (View Navigate Orientation) will fit the selected items to the screen when changing viewpoints.
• Steering Wheel: Use this command to access the various SteeringWheels tools.

Note: Many of the commands within the Navigate panel on the View tab of the ribbon are also available from the Navigation Bar.

The Appearance Panel

• Visual Style options:
  • Shaded: Shade your model with no edges (feature lines) or mesh lines. Only the faces of the CAD model or elements are shaded.
  • Edges (FEA Editor) or Features (Results environment): Display the model with only the edges (feature lines).
    Note: Edges are the perimeters of a surface in a CAD model or edge of a part you create with 2D automatic mesh generation. Feature lines are determined by the angle between two adjacent elements. If the normal directions are different, or the edge is shared with a different part, then a feature line is created at the common edge between elements.
  • Shaded with Edges (FEA Editor) or Shaded with Features (Results environment): Display the model with the edges (feature lines) and shading.
  • Mesh: Display the model with mesh lines only.
  • Shaded with Mesh: Shade the model and display mesh lines.
• Perspective View: Toggle between perspective and orthographic model views.
• Only Bad CAD Features Displays unmatched or multi-matched CAD model feature lines (edges). These edges can be problematic for meshing. All other edges are hidden. For more information, see Feature Matching.

Control how models are colored

In Simulation Mechanical, a standard pallet of colors is associated with the part, surface, layer, or edge number of the entities. However, part or surface colors that are defined within the CAD package used to construct the imported model will override the Simulation Mechanical colors (for supported applications and CAD formats).

Part colors can be overridden by right-clicking on a part heading in the browser (within the FEA Editor) and choosing Edit Color. Colors defined here also affect the part color within the Results environment (when results contours are not being displayed).

Lighting affects the darkness or brightness of the model colors. The parameters are defined by choosing Lighting from the list of items within the Graphics tab of the Options dialog box ( Options Graphics Lighting).

The color of construction objects follows the settings under Options Sketching.

Color settings in the FEA Editor environment:

In the FEA Editor environment, click View Appearance Color by... to change the basis of the model colors. Choose between entity part, surface, layer, or edge numbers as the basis for the coloration.

In addition, you can choose between two different behaviors for the shading of surfaces (that is, element faces) in the FEA Editor environment. The colors depend upon whether the CAD Surfaces option is enabled (View Appearance CAD Surfaces), as detailed below. This option is only available for CAD-based models.

• CAD Surfaces option enabled:

  Mesh lines and element faces are the same color, based on the Color by setting (part, surface, or layer). A different brightness or darkness is used to provide contrast for visibility of the mesh lines. The color for each item is dictated by the surface or part number of the entities, or by the color data in the imported CAD model (when supported).

• CAD Surfaces option disabled:

  The mesh lines will be colored in the same way as described in the preceding bullet. By default, the element faces will appear in grayscale. The shade varies according to the orientation of the surfaces with respect to the lighting direction. You can customize this shading color using the Default Shade drop-down selector in the FEA Editor tab of the Options dialog box ( Options FEA Editor Default Shade).

Notes:

• In most situations, the difference between these two settings is negligible. If the mesh is coarse relative to the model curvature, viewing the CAD surfaces shows a smoother shape (not faceted). However, some of the mesh lines may appear to be outside the volume of the CAD solid. Some mesh lines may also be hidden below the CAD surface.
• Surface selection is easier when the CAD Surfaces option is enable. The surface will be selected when you click with the cursor located anywhere along the surface. When this option is disabled, you must click on a mesh line belonging to the surface in order to select the surface.
• This setting has a big effect when you view a midplane mesh. With the CAD Surfaces option active, the CAD model is visible, and the midplane mesh is not visible since it is inside the solid. This option must be disabled to see a midplane mesh.
• Element face colors always follow the Default Shade setting when the Color by option is set to Layer or Edge.
• When edge-based coloring is displayed (View Appearance Color By Edge), the color for acceptable edge lines is based on the part number. A special case – blue or orange edge lines – indicate unmatched or multi-matched edges, respectively.

Color settings in the Results environment:

In the Results environment, click Options Results Part and Mesh Preferences to change the part or mesh color settings.

You can choose to use the color defined in the CAD model or FEA Editor for part and mesh coloration (Use part color options). You can also choose to override the color for all parts (Use this color options). In any case, these settings only affects the display of the model within the Results environment.

You can change the preferences for the Current model parts and mesh as well as redefining the Default colors for future models.

When a results contour is displayed, the contour plot appears instead of the defined part color.

The Visibility Panel

• Loads and Constraints: Toggle the visibility of the glyphs used to represent loads and constraints (FEA Objects).
• Show All Surfaces (FEA Editor only): Turn on the visibility of all model surfaces, except for those belonging to suppressed parts. Use this command to conveniently unhide the full set of previously hidden surfaces.
• Endpoint Vertices (FEA Editor only): Displays an X at the ends of each line segment, at the nodes/vertices of the elements.
• Construction Objects (FEA Editor only): Toggle the visibility of construction lines, arcs, circles, rectangles and splines.
• Construction Vertices (FEA Editor only): Toggle the visibility of construction vertices (displayed as solid blue dots).
• User Interface options:
  • Show Browser: Toggle the visibility of the Browser (tree view), which appears by default along the left edge of the display area but can be docked to the opposite side or floated.
  • Show Local Zoom: Magnify a portion of the model. When active, the magnifier window is visible in the center of the display area. A preview window shows the magnified image in a corner of the display. The magnifier window anchors to the screen so changes in model orientation do not effect the window.

    To move the magnifier window, place the cursor inside its border. The cursor changes to a hand icon. Hold down the left mouse button to drag the magnifier window to a new location. You can also customize the location, size, and magnification factor of the local zoom window using the settings in the Graphics tab of the application Options dialog box.

  • Show Miniaxis: Activate or deactivate the miniaxis graphic in the display area. The graphic shows the orientation of the global coordinate system. To change the size or location of the miniaxis display, go to Options Graphics.
  • Show Navigation Bar: Toggle the visibility of the Navigation Bar. By default, the Navigation Bar appears at the right edge of the display area, immediately below the ViewCube. The Navigation Bar location follows the ViewCube if it is moved from the default location (upper-right corner).
  • Show Scale Ruler: Toggle the visibility of the ruler at the bottom of the display window. Go to Options Graphics Scale ruler to set the size of the scale ruler.
  • Show ViewCube: Toggle the visibility of the ViewCube navigation tool. This tool appears in the upper-right corner of the display area by default, but it can be moved to any of the other three corners using the settings in the Graphics tab of the application Options dialog box.
  • Show Output Bar: Toggle the visibility of the Output Bar, which appears by default along the bottom of the display area but can also be a floating window. This visibility option is only available if the Output Bar is not set to auto-hide.
• Object Visibility Options (FEA Editor only):
  • Auxiliary Vertices: Display auxiliary nodes which define beam element orientation. The auxiliary nodes display as small circles.
  • Element Axis 1: Display the Local Axis 1 direction for beam and spring elements. This axis lies in the plane formed by the element and the K node and is at 90 degrees from Local Axis 1. The Local Axis 2 orientation is shown using green arrows.
  • Element Axis 2: Display the Local Axis 2 direction for beam and spring elements. This axis points along the direction of the element line, from the I node to the J node. The axis 1 orientation is shown using red arrows.
  • Element Axis 3: Display the Local Axis 3 direction for beam and spring elements. This axis is the cross product of axes 2 and 3 (following the right-hand rule). The Local Axis 3 orientation is shown using blue arrows.
    Tip: You can remember the colors for element axis orientation arrows by comparing RGB to 123.
  • Internal Mesh: When you automatically solid mesh a part, the interior lines are placed on Surface 0 and do not display by default. This is true for CAD models and hand-built models that you solid mesh with the command Mesh Mesh Create Solid Mesh. To apply a load to nodes inside the solid, display the interior lines so that you can select the nodes. Click View Visibility Object Visibility Internal Mesh to toggle the display of the interior lines.
    Note: By default, interior lines are generated in CAD-based solid models when you first perform the analysis. If you require the solid mesh before the analysis is run, deactivate the option Mesh Mesh 3D Mesh Settings Options General Perform solid meshing at time of analysis before generating the surface mesh. Alternatively, after surface meshing, select the parts to solid mesh, right-click, and choose CAD Mesh Options Create Solid Mesh. Also, it is not necessary to display the interior lines when you apply a load to the part (such as part-based temperatures, initial velocities, or gravity).
  • Midside Vertices: Displays an X at the midside nodes for parts that include midside nodes.
  • Nodal Coordinate Systems: Displays the local coordinate system miniaxis symbols at the nodes assigned to any local coordinate system. The red line points in the direction of the local X axis, the green line points in the direction of the local Y axis, and the blue line points in the direction of the local Z axis. This command is equivalent to when you right-click Coordinate Systems in the browser and select Visibility of All.
    Tip: You can remember the line color by comparing RGB to XYZ.
    Note: Local X,Y,Z depends on whether the coordinate system is rectangular, cylindrical, or spherical.
  • Sketch Planes: Displays all drawing planes. This setting is equivalent to when you right-click Planes in the browser and select Visibility of All.
  • Refinement Points: Toggle the visibility of mesh refinement points.
  • Refinement Sphere: Toggle the visibility of transparent orange spheres that show the zone of refinement around all refinement points. The size of a sphere is based on the Effective radius of each refinement point.