New and Improved Results and Visualization Functionality
General New Results and Visualization Functionality
User-Defined Environment Maps
The new Add Environment Map option lets you add user-defined environment maps to the list of available environment maps. Define the environment map as a set of colors or use images as input. Two different image types are supported: Equirectangular, a panorama image of the environment, and Cube map, six images for each face of a cubed mapped environment. There is also support for importing environment-map definitions into the model object to facilitate sharing MPH files with users who do not have the same local environment-map definitions.
More Built-In Environment Maps
In addition to the possibility to add user-defined environment maps, five new built-in environment maps have been added: Auto Shop, Cloudy, Dusk, Golden Gate Hills, and Sky.
Visualization of the World Space Origin and Axes
You can now visualize the world space origin and the axes of the world coordinate system in the Graphics window. Enable Show origin and Show coordinate axes from the Graphics window toolbar.
API Methods for Running All Active Results Features
You can now use the following API methods to run all active plots, evaluation groups, or derived values in a model:
model.result().run();
model.result().evaluationGroup().run();
model.result().numerical().run();
Color Tables for Safety Plots
The new built-in color tables Safety and SafetyBlue can be used to visualize safety states in, for example, fasteners in structural mechanics. Safety is a discrete color table containing the colors red-orange-green, and SafetyBlue is a discrete color table containing the colors red-orange-blue.
More LaTeX Arrow Types
Added support for 25 new arrow types in LaTeX. For example, \circlearrowleft and \circlearrowright can be used to show rotation direction.
Improvements to Preferred Units
You can now define preferred units in the Preferences window to apply them universally across models. Support for defining a custom unit for a physical quantity has also been added. Additionally, in the Preferred Units node under Configurations, you can now save and load preferred units to or from a text file.
More Input Formats in the Color Table Settings
It is now possible to use both decimal and hexadecimal values to specify RGB colors in color tables. For a decimal input, you can define colors as RBG values with a range from 0 to 1 or 0 to 255. For a hexadecimal input, you can define colors using hexadecimal color codes.
Information Section
The Information section is shown in more results features. You can now get information about, for example, calculation time and memory usage in 2D and 3D plot groups, derived values nodes, and evaluation group nodes.
Paste Clipboard Data into Result Features
It is now possible to paste any numerical data you have copied to the clipboard — from, for example, a plot, spreadsheet, or document — into 1D and polar plot groups to create a Table Graph plot, or directly into Table nodes.
Lagrange Order and Gauss Point Order
More results features now support Lagrange order 0 and Gauss point order 0, including Maximum and Minimum datasets and Maximum and Minimum numerical evaluation features, which previously only had support for values 1 and above.
Improved Headers in Plot Export Features
When exporting a plot as a text file, the data headers for each column now also display the parameter values. To disable this feature, clear the Include parameter values in data header checkbox in the Advanced section of a Plot export node.
Support for Exporting 16-Bit per Channel PNG Files
In the Image and Animation export features, you can now export PNG images with higher color precision by selecting the new 16-bit color channels checkbox. You can also generate 16-bit PNG files using the Image Snapshot functionality in the Graphics window toolbar.
New and Improved Dataset and Evaluation Functionality
Two new datasets have been added for use in results evaluation of granular flow: Grain and Grain Bin. These datasets require the Granular Flow Module.
New Standard Deviation nodes are available under Derived Values and Evaluation Group nodes. You can use them to calculate standard deviation quantities for each solution in a dataset.
For System Matrix evaluations, it is now possible to set a Cutoff Threshold at which matrix entries with roundoff errors are considered 0.
The advanced setting Define variables in datasets has been removed. The variables are now always defined.
In Global Matrix Evaluation and Point Matrix Evaluation features, it is now possible to make the result symmetric by selecting the new Make symmetric checkbox.
You can now enter a variable in the Number of sectors field in Sector datasets.
The Use derivatives setting is now also available for Isosurface and Contour datasets.
The Cut Line and Cut Plane datasets now define an index variable that evaluates to the line or plane index. This lets you access each individual plane when additional parallel lines or planes are defined.
You can now evaluate multiple curves and multiple surfaces separately in integration, average, maximum, minimum, and measurement numerical evaluation features. This is applicable when the underlying dataset is Cut Line or Cut Plane and additional parallel lines or parallel planes are defined. It is also applicable when the underlying dataset is Shell or Layered Material and several through-thickness locations are defined.
New and improved Graphics and Plot Functionality
Two new plot types have been added for plotting granular flow: Grain (1D) and Grain Positions (2D and 3D). These plots require the Granular Flow Module.
A new Table Arrow plot is available for plotting arrows based on data taken from a table or evaluation group.
The plot Quality settings can now be specified centrally in the plot group. A new Evaluation settings option in plots defines whether the Quality settings are taken from the parent plot group or are specified in the selected plot.
A new Solution Array attribute node makes it possible to efficiently create plot arrays from a selection of multiple times, eigenvalues, or parameter values.
Multiple improvements have been made to the Streamline, Streamline Multislice, and Streamline Surface plots; see details below:
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To enhance the look of streamlines that originate from a boundary or an edge in Streamline (2D and 3D) and Streamline Surface (3D) plots, it is now possible to make the density of the streamlines magnitude-dependent.
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When the positioning is Uniform density or Magnitude controlled, the Separating distance, Minimum distance, and Maximum distance settings have been changed to Density level, Minimum density level, and Maximum density level, respectively.
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The default values for the Maximum number of integration steps settings have been increased. The property is renamed from maxsteps to maxintegrationsteps.
The Use parameter indicator for solution and phase checkbox is now available when the Title type in plots is Label. Previously, it was only available for Custom titles.
Legends in graph plots, x- and y-axis labels in plot groups, and parameter indicators in plot group titles now support the use of mixed-mode LaTeX commands.
You can now control the color of node points in 2D and 3D Mesh plots by selecting a color from the Point color list in the Coloring and Style section.
Previously, annotations were automatically taken from the table headers in Table Annotation plots; it is now possible to choose where to take the labels from: Row headers, Row numbers, Label (the plot’s label), or Manual (to specify your own annotation).
You can now plot the normalized arc length on the x-axis in Line Graph plots by selecting the Normalize checkbox in the x-Axis Data section.
A Normalization setting has been added to the Polarization plot. The polarization ellipse size can now be normalized either to each diffraction order or to the largest diffraction efficiency. There is also a Manual option that allows you to enter a value in the Scale field.
In the Plot Array settings for plot groups, the Enable checkbox and Array shape list have been replaced with an Array type list, from which you can choose None, Line, or Square.
The frame and background are now optional in graph legends in 1D plot groups. Clear the Background checkbox to remove the frame and background, if desired.
A From theme option has been added to the Point color setting in Function plots in 1D plot groups.
Smoothing settings can now be applied to Arrow Line and Arrow Surface plots when the Placement of the arrows is set to Mesh vertices.
In Graph Marker subnodes, when displaying Max and Min markers, there is now a Use cubic interpolation checkbox, which, if selected, can provide a more accurate estimation of the extreme values.
A new functionality in Selection subnodes lets you map evaluations on boundaries to their adjacent domains. This functionality can help produce more accurate plots when the adjacent domains have strongly contrasting material properties, for example. When the Geometric entity level is Domain, choose Selected domains from the Evaluate in list to enable the functionality. The Adjacent boundary option (selected by default) corresponds to the behavior in version 6.3 and earlier. It is also possible to control whether boundaries external or internal to the selection are included in the plot by selecting the Exterior boundaries and Interior boundaries checkboxes, respectively.
New and Improved Report and Presentation Functionality
The Model Contents ribbon and context menus have been reorganized to make it easier to set up reports and presentations.