Chapter 15: Using Planes to Understand Results

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results planes

cut planes

Results Planes are the primary tool for visualizing data on three dimensional models. They are cutting planes, and have several roles in AutodeskĀ® CFD results visualization:

This chapter focuses on the following topics:

Creating and Managing Planes

Results Plane Workflow

To Create a Plane

To Rename a Plane

To Select a Plane

Note: Select a plane before modifying it.

To Disable Highlighting of the Active Plane

plane outline

To Hide a Plane

Note: A disabled Plane is not displayed, and cannot be modified. Hiding Planes is useful when capturing an image of a specific Plane.

To Delete a Plane

Note: Use Summary Planes to save and compute Bulk results for all scenarios in a design study to the Decision Center. This is a powerful way to compare flow rate, pressure, and other data critical to making informed design decisions.

Positioning and Controlling Plane Appearance

Plane Controls

To Move a Plane

Note: A plane can only move in a direction perpendicular to itself.

To Rotate a Plane

(To change the center of rotation, drag the triad within the Plane. The center of rotation is the triad origin.)

To Align to a Model Surface

After invoking the Align to surface command, click the desired surface in the model. The plane moves to the selected surface, and is parallel to it. If the selected surface is not planar, the plane moves to the element face closest to the selection point on the surface.

To Change the Appearance

To Change the Displayed Result Quantity

To Save Results on a Plane

To View a Plane on a Shaded Model

Clipping improves the visibility of specific model regions, and is a powerful way to display vectors when the model is shaded.

Vectors

To enable vectors or to change the vector quantity:

To change vector appearance:

To control the vector density:

Click More... to make the following changes:

To control the display of arrowheads:

To show regions where the active vector is within a specified range:

  1. Check Filtering.
  2. Enter a range in the Min and Max fields.

Click Reset or uncheck Filtering to display the entire model.

Plane Functionality

Planes provide a wide array of visualization functionality:

Accessing Plane Functionality:

Note: Ensure Planes is selected on the Results Tasks panel.

a. Settings (Controls)

b. Vector settings

c. Bulk

d. XY Plot

Ā 

Measuring and Plotting Data on a Plane:

In addition to visual feedback of the flow and thermal behavior, the results plane also provides access to quantitative results. There are three ways to measure results in real time:

Probe with the Mouse

  1. Hover the mouse over the desired location on the results plane.
  2. View results in the Status Bar in the lower left corner of the Interface.

Create XY Plots

create xy plot

Create an XY plot by selecting points on a cutting surface, by entering point coordinates, or with points saved from a previous plot. The maximum number of points in an xy plot is 500.

  1. Create a Results Plane and open the XY Plot dialog.

  2. Select the method of point selection:

    • Add by Picking

      • Click Add points.
      • Click on locations on the cutting plane through which the plot will pass. The Point List Region displays points.
      • A minimum of two points is required.
    • Add by Key In

      • Specify X, Y, and Z coordinates separated by a comma in the field. (Do not use brackets or parentheses.)
      • Click Add.
    • Read from File

      • To save XY plot point locations to a file, click Save Points.
      • To create a new XY plot using saved point locations, select Read from File. Click Browse, and select the desired xyp file.
      Note: You can use saved point locations to create a plot on a different scenario.
  3. Enter a Title.

    • Specify a Title for the plot. This is optional. If no title is entered, the plot is labeled "Untitled."
  4. Change the Number of Divisions.

    • The default number of divisions between every point is 20.

    • Modify this value to change the plot resolution.

      Note: The number of divisions must between 2 and 500.
  5. Create the Plot.

    • To create the plot, click Plot.

Save a table

This command saves a comma separated variable (".csv") file on a uniform distribution of points throughout the plane.

To change the number of points saved to the table, modify the Grid spacing resolution on the Vector settings tab:

grid spacing

Using a Plane to Measure Bulk Values

The Bulk Calculator quickly calculates and shows bulk-weighted results on a Results Plane. Bulk (mass-weighted) results are automatically updated as the active Plane is moved.

Workflow

bulk results

Start by positioning the Results Plane in the desired location.

  1. Open the Bulk dialog.
  2. Select the desired quantities for bulk calculation.
  3. Change the units of the output quantity with the adjacent menu list.
  4. Click the Calculate button.
  5. The bulk results are written to the Output tab.

To save bulk data when animating a transient analysis, click the Save button. The results from the active time steps will be saved to an Excel csv file.

Notes

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