PCL; Is there a PCL function which adjust FEM viewing to show location of some selected property eg. max Von Mises.

Question

Hello! I would like Patran to automaticaly adjust FEM viewing (by rotation and view fit) to show max Von Mises. Is there already PCL function which does the job?

Arthur Hickson · Accepted Answer

I have a partial answer that might be useful.

If you are creating the plots with your own PCL then you have (or could get) the 5 result_ids that define the result being plotted. Given the result_ids you can call the res_utl_extract_nodal_results2 (or …_elem_.. ) function which has return arguments for the minloc and maxloc, which can be used to find the relevant IDs from the ids array.

So knowing the max value is at a particular node (elem) you could tap into the shareware “Local View” utility (Utilities/view/Local View) as follows:

If "node 18" was the node with the max value you can call:

ui_exec_function("ajh_view_local","init")

ajh_view_local.get_current_view()

ajh_view_local.point("Node 18")

ajh_view_local.apply_transforms()

for an "element 20" the corresponding calls would be:

ui_exec_function("ajh_view_local","init")

ajh_view_local.get_current_view()

ajh_view_local.element("Element 20")

ajh_view_local.apply_transforms()

in these examples I have hard coded the string argument for Node18 and Element 20.

Sequence of calls is to:

1 initialize ajh_view_local

2 get current view settings

3 specify the object to create a new local view coordinate system, use your node/element with max value

4 shift the object to screen centre and set rotation about this object

Then optionally you might want to orientate the view using the “local view” coordinate system

ajh_view_local.front_view()

best regards

Arthur