Actually, there was a package developed by a private company (SciVis) a number of years ago with a convenient user interface. I don't think that company is around any more and I don't the status of what they developed. However, some of the filters were made available on the DX bonuspak and are on the web:
http://www.research.ibm.com/dx/bonuspak/html/bonuspak306.html I don't think PATRAN is in the set on the web, although DYTRAN and NASTRAN are. Hopefully, these older tools will be useful. Chris Pelkie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>@opendx.watson.ibm.com on 04/27/2000 07:37:21 AM Please respond to [email protected] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [email protected] cc: Subject: [opendx-users] Re: FE->DX >What's the best way to display simple contour data from FEM analysis? > I have used dx for regular grids, and would like to use is to look at >some FEM results, but I am not sure how import the FE mesh into dx. Do I >need to write out the FE mesh in a format dx can import, or can it >directly read the FE mesh formats? All the FEM data is nodal. > Thanks, Fred Phelan I'm not aware of any FEM->DX importers at the present time. You can probably pretty easily construct a program (in C for instance) to convert to "DX". The program can generate the entire DX native file format header stuff with a bunch of printf's. If you are lucky, you can even point to the original data file and not have to actually modify it (but I doubt it: FEM files are pretty twisted IMHO). You are almost certainly building a file with irregular positions, irregular connections which requires an explicit list of position vectors for the "positions" Component and an explicit list of integer vectors (indices of the positions list) for the "connections" Component. There is an example of how this is formatted in the Users Guide, Appendix B-2 Examples (of Native File Format). Remember connection indices start at 0 (the last FEM converter I wrote had to do the offset from PATRAN's start index of 1). DX does not natively support edge, face, or cell-centered nodes (just "corners" or "ends" to use the vernacular). You either have to increase the apparent resolution of the object to pick these up (i.e. an FE cube with face and cell centered nodes becomes 8 cubes in DX), or skip them (which for visualization purposes may be just fine). Or hire me to do it. (;-) (Were you in either of the DX classes I taught down there at NIST?) Chris Pelkie Vice President/Scientific Visualization Producer Conceptual Reality Presentations, Inc. 30 West Meadow Drive Ithaca, NY 14850 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (607) 257-8335 or (607) 254-8794
