Element Visual Inspection

Overview

When FEMAP finishes meshing a model, a brief report of the mesh quality is written to the Messages pane. It's often desirable to visually inspect the worst elements of the mesh, and review their shape, and location in the model, an action which is not necessarily that easy to do with a solid model. However, in FEMAP interactive Meshing Toolbox there is a locator function, which can be used to locate problematic geometry entities – curves and surfaces – as well as elements.

      

      

      

      

Inspection Instructions

Follow these step-by-step instructions to switch on the Locator:

1. Activate the Meshing Toolbox by clicking the Meshing icon in the Panes toolbar and click on the Toggle Entity Locator icon on the Meshing Toolbox.
   
2. Select Elements as the Search For criteria and Quality as the Search Method, and you will see all of the elements that fail the selected quality type and value.
   
3. Here FEMAP displays the transparent model, with the elements that failed the quality criterion highlighted.
   
   
4. Zooming up allows you to get a good view of the failed elements, and you can then make a decision based on the element shape and its location in the model whether or not it’s necessary to improve the mesh. If it is, then it’s easy to go back and use FEMAP's Meshing toolbox to interactively change some of the meshing parameters in this area and improve the mesh.
   

Video Demonstration

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