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UTILITIES

Within Utilities there are included some commands that provide information or allow actions over both the geometry and the mesh. Others can act over the whole project.



Preferences



Note:There are some pre-definitions or ways of working that can be set in GiD. They can be set in two ways: via the Preferences window or with the Preferences command. In the following description, the different Preferences options are shown, giving their associated variables.

The first group of Preferences (general preferences) is used to set different ways of working with GiD:



General preferences



The second group of preferences (graphical) are used to set different ways of visualizing the model. They do not change the geometry and the model information. These preferences are:



Graphical preferences



The third group of preferences are meshing options:



Meshing preferences

Surface meshers can be:

These generators are based on the advancing front generation mesh technique in order to improve speed and portability.

Note: GiD can internally try another mesher when one of them fails to generate the mesh for one surface.



The fourth group of preferences are the geometry import and collapse options:



Import preferences



The fifth group of preferences are the fonts used inside GiD:



Font preferences



Renumber

When creating new entities, the label of the new entity will be the lowest number greater than 0 that still does not exist for this entity type. If an entity is deleted, a gap is left in the label's list. This gap would be filled with new entities but it is possible to renumber the geometry to change the former entity labels. There are no problems with materials and conditions applied to entities.

In geometry mode, the renumbered entities are the geometrical ones. In mesh mode, the renumbered entities are the meshed ones. In this case, renumbering not only fills the gaps in the labels list but also changes the node numbers so as to minimize the difference of node numbers within each element. This can be useful when the calculating module uses band or skyline storage methods.

Note: It is usually not necessary to use this command because it is automatically applied when generating the mesh.



Calculator



Vectorial calculator

This option opens a scalar and vectorial calculator. It has its own help. Try button 2 or 3 over one button.

It's possible to transfer scalar and vector and points and distances from and to the calculator and the main graphical display.



Id

This command gives the label and coordinates of an existing or new point.

Options are:



Signal

With this option, the user can select one entity (point,line surface or volume), and a pair of crossed lines in the graphical window signal the center of the entity.

They must be existing entities, except the especial case of point or nodes, where they can be existing or defined with any of the usual methods.

Option Superpose Lines is useful when in render mode. Depending whether it is set or not, lines will be always in front or the object or they can be partially hidden by the model.



List



List entities window

Command List gives information about the selected entities. This information is read only.

If option Mass is checked, information about physical properties is given: length of lines, center of masses, area of surfaces, volume of solids. It works either for the geometry or for the mesh.



Status



Project status window

Option Status gives information about useful general data of the project.



Distance

Command Distance gives the distance between two existing or new points.



Draw line normals

Command DrawNormals. Lines draws the sense of the selected lines.

If the line lies on the plane z=0, apart from the sense, GiD displays the normal of the line in 2D.

Viewing commands (zoom, rotation, etc.) can be applied and the normals remain on the screen.

It is possible to swap the sense of the lines using the options All swaped or Swap some.

Options are:



Draw surface normals

Command DrawNormals. Surfaces draws the normals of the selected surfaces.

Surfaces belonging to the plane z=0 will have, by default, its normal oriented towards the z positive. Then, they are defined as anti-clockwise surfaces in 2D.

It is possible to swap the sense of the normals when the corresponding surfaces do not belong to higher entities.

Options are:

Note: Volumes are correctly oriented by GiD, regardless of their surface orientation.



Copy





Copy window

Copy is a general function that allows the user select a group of entities and copy them with a movement that can be translation, rotation, mirror,scale or offset. The process is:

Select the type of entities to copy: point, line, surface or volume, when being in geometry mode, or option nodes or elements, when being in mesh mode. All the lower entities that belong to the selected ones will be automatically computed. the type of movement needs to be chosen and the parameters for the movement are defined. Options are:

Other available options are:

Mantain layers: If this option is not set the new entities created will be placed in the layer to use; otherwise, the new entities are copied to the same layers as their originals.

Note: Entities belonging to a frozen layer (see section Layers), are not checked when sharing old entities.



Move

This command works like the command Copy but moves the entities instead of copying them. The program checks automatically if some of the entities must be copied instead of moved (for this reason, these entities belong also to non-selected entities of higher level) and performs the corresponding operation.

Options like Extrude, Multiple copy and Create contacts are disabled for movements.



Repair

This option checks the coherence of the database information. Only use it if there are problems. When used, a window notifies repaired items and may give some warnings about incorrect entities.



Collapse

The function Collapse convert coincident entities or entities that are close each other into one.

The variable ImportTolerance (see section Preferences), controls the maximum distance between two adjacents points to be converted into one. With lines and surfaces, a maximum distance between both entities is calculated and when it is less than ImportTolerance, they are converted into one.

Select the type of entities: point, line, surface or volume, when being in geometry mode. All the lower entities that belong to the selected ones will be automatically computed. After pressing escape, collapse is performed.

Option Model performs the operation over all the entities of the model.



COLLAPSING MESH:

When a mesh is created the collapse menu changes and it's possible to collapse edges, nodes, elements or the entire mesh.

Note: Entities belonging to a frozen layer (see section Layers), are not checked when collapsing.



Uncollapse

Function uncollapse permits the user to select either lines or surfaces and duplicate boundary entities.

Typically, if two surfaces share one line as an edge, after applying this function to both surfaces, that line will be duplicated and every line will belong to a different surface.



Undo



Undo window

This command allows the user undo any previous commands executed since the last time the project was saved or read. To do this, the user must select in the undo window the set of commands that have to be undone.



Comments

This facility is included to add comments to the pictures obtained through GiD (see section Print to file). Three lines are allowed and with the Comments button the user can impose their printing on the screen to foresee mistakes or perform changes before printing.

All the comment lines have their corresponding input button and the literal text, written into the command line between double-quotes, will be the output.



Graphical

In this menu there are some options to change the windows appearance. They can be inside another window or independent or disappear. Windows are:



Coordinates window

This option opens a window used to enter points (see section Point definition). It can be used in any place where it is possible to enter one point.

To accept one point in this window, press Accept or press the Return key.

Option Coordinate system allows the user select between:

Option Local axes allows the user choose:

New point shows the current way of entering points. Button Change opens the preferences window (see section Preferences) where it can be changed.

Button Pick allows the user select a point from the window and it is inserted in the point fields. Then it can be edited and used.



Read batch window

A batch file can be read to execute some functions (see section Batch file) or to create an animated view of these operations. This latter case can be performed with the Read batch window.



Read batch window

Once selected a file, it is possible to execute it interactively and make it stop in some interesting parts. To allow all the movements (rotations and so on) be executed in the same way that originally, option Write rotations in batch: must be set in preferences (see section Preferences), when creating the batch.

There are several ways to stop the running batch. One of them is to include stops in the show file section with the Mark break button, and selecting Internal stop. This marks can be saved in the batch file with button Write....

Option Show info lets the program write all the usual messages in the GiD messages window.



Clip planes



This window allows to hide the front or the back of the view.

Clip planes is a way not to draw the geometry or mesh that is very close or very far to the viewer.

Moving Near plane, hides the geometry that is closer to the viewer. Moving Far plane, hides the geometry that is further to the viewer.

To see the changes dynamically, select Dynamic update. Option Fixed distance, allows a constant distance between both planes.

A new rotation center can be chosen or selected from the window.

Option Increase boundaries, increments the ends in the bars of Far plane and Near plane.

Note: All this information is reset when performing a zoom frame. (see section Zoom).



Save configuration file

It is possible to save a window configuration into a file. Then if GiD is open again with option -c (see section INVOKING GiD) and this file, the windows are open in the same place and size.



Perspective



Perspective window

By default, a model is viewed inside GiD using orthogonal projection.

With this option, it is possible to change to a perspective projection. In this mode, the user can choose a distortion factor for the perspective. This can be updated dynamically.



Change Light Vector

With this option the user can change the VECTOR of the light direction interactively or just entering the VECTOR components on the command line.

Options are:



Macros window



Window that allows the creation and recording of macros

Window 'Macros' permits to create sequences of commands and give a name to them. This group of commands can also be recorded from one execution set inside the program.

It is possible to assign a keyboard shortcut to a given macro.

Note: Macros are considered as a user preference and not related to the active model. So, to transfer a set of macros from one user to another it is necessary to check the files: gid.ini or .gidDefaults.



Selection window

In these functions where the user has to select some entities (creation of a surface or a volume, copy of entities ...) it is possible to use the selection window. The selection window lets you take control of the selection process.



Selection window

Note: the option Sel window is only avalaible in the mouse menu during the selection process.

The selection window has the following options:



Animate Controls



Animate controls window

This windows allows the creation of animations while using GiD. Any of these format can be selected: MPEG, AVI True Color, AVI 15bpp (reduced number of colors: 32768) and GIF. AVI with MJPEG compression is also supported. After giving a name and a delay time between frames (for 20 frames per second, a delay of 1/20 = 50 ms. should be entered) the process can start just clicking on the start button ( film roll and arrow button), the green led will change to red.

The user can add frame by frame the pictures he wants into the animation file just clicking on the film roll and arrow button. The option Save redraws tells GiD to save every redraw automatically into the animation file, so no user intervention is needed to store frames.

The animation can be finished at any time just pressing the closed film roll button, the red led will change to green.

Note: To avoid problems when trying to view an MPEG format animation in Microsoft Windows, it is strongly recommended to use the Default menu to select a 'standard' size and press the Resize button. The graphical window will change to this 'standard' size. After finishing the animation, just selecting Default on the menu and pressing the Resize button, the previous size will be restored.

Note: The AVI files with MJPEG compression, can be viewed with xanim on Linux and unix machines, and with DirectX 8.x installed in Microsoft Windows machines.

Dimensions

With the dimensions option it's possible to add textual information to your model. That information can be changed of layer or deleted.



There are the following options:



Deletes a "dimension". Select the dimension you want to delete and press ESC.



Select the dimension you want to edit, change the text, and click OK.



This option lets you change the appearence of a "dimension"; a "dimension" can be drawn with or without a box. Choose ShowBox on or off, select a "dimension" and press ESC.


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