Cubit® is a full-featured software toolkit for robust generation of two- and three-dimensional finite element meshes (grids) and geometry preparation. Its main goal is to reduce the time to generate meshes, particularly large hex meshes of complicated, interlocking assemblies.
Product Highlights
Meshing: Cubit® is a solid-modeler based preprocessor that meshes volumes and surfaces for finite element analysis. Mesh generation algorithms include quadrilateral and triangular paving, 2D and 3D mapping, hex sweeping and multi-sweeping, tet meshing, and various special purpose primitives. Cubit® contains many algorithms for controlling and automating much of the meshing process, such as automatic scheme selection, interval matching, sweep grouping and sweep verification, and also includes state-of-the-art smoothing algorithms.
Geometry Preparation: One of Cubit®’s strengths is its ability to import and mesh geometry from a variety of CAD packages. Cubit® currently integrates the ACIS and Catia geometry kernels directly within its code base, allowing direct manipulation of the native CAD geometry format within Cubit®. This reduces the errors and anomalies so often associated with geometry translation. CGM (Common Geometry Module) also boasts a facet-based geometry kernel developed at Sandia that can be used for remeshing or editing old mesh files or models defined by triangle facets. In addition, Cubit® has developed a comprehensive virtual geometry capability that permits local composites and partitions to geometry without modifying the underlying native geometry representation. The user can choose to ignore, clean-up or add features to the model allowing greater flexibility to meshing algorithms to generate better quality elements.
Cubit® Environment: Cubit® has developed both a convenient command line interface with an extensive command language as well as a polished graphical user interface environment. The GUI is based upon the cross-platform standard Qt, which allows the same look and feel on all supported platforms. Also included is a graphical environment based upon the VTK graphics standard which has been optimized for display and manipulation of finite element data and geometry. Fast, interactive manipulation of the model is a tremendous advantage for models with thousands of parts or millions of elements.
For more information on Cubit®, including licensing arrangements and terms see the Cubit® website.
Improved stability by removing ability for groups to include other groups in a circular fashion
Geometry
Enhanced recognition of bolt features and improved patch reductions
Bolt reduction, introduced in Cubit® 16.12, was enhanced to handle more use cases. The case of bolts clamping more than 3 members is now supported. A larger variety of bolt head shapes are now supported including countersunk bolts. The Shigley radius calculation on clamping members is improved to handle countersunk bolts. Hole identification is improved and can tolerate slight misalignments with bolts. Additionally, a limited set of cases where bolts are clamping at slotted holes is supported.
and is now the default behavior. When determining if adjacent surfaces should be composited, surface normals will be computed on the surface at shared boundary curves, instead of at the surface midpoints. This results in more surfaces being involved in the composite, especially if fillets and rounds are present. Below shows highlighted surfaces that will be composited.
Improved accuracy while selecting entities in graphics window in perspective mode
Selecting small feature in perspective mode. Right image shows correct curve selected.
While in perspective mode, the selection accuracy is improved to make it easier to select entities under the mouse cursor. Selection while in orthographic mode did not suffer from this issue.
Better support for modern desktops with user interface upgraded to Qt6
Comparison of non-scale aware GUI (left) vs. scale aware GUI (right)
High resolution monitors and desktop scaling are now supported in Cubit using the new Qt6 GUI toolkit. Toolbar icons, text, and other UI features are now aware of desktop scaling.
New SVG Icons
Cubit® icons have been updated to scalable vector graphics images, meaning that the image will appear sharp at any resolution. This required a redesign of the icons. The redesigned icons are largely translations of the old ones into SVG, but have more of a minimalist aesthetic. We expect that users used to the old interface will be able to quickly recognize the new ones.
Input/Output
Avoid inverting tiny wedge elements during import
Imported meshes with tiny wedges no longer have their wedges inverted in an attempt to fix negative jacobians. Element inversion detection has been improved for all element types, and additionally, element inversion is no longer performed at import time.
Miscellaneous
Improved support for python virtual environments
Cubit’s embedded python interpreter now understands python virtual environments. If the user sets up a python virtual environment and uses Cubit within that environment, modules loaded by Cubit will now come from the virtual environment. The use of Cubit’s machine learning capability is an example of where this will have an impact.
Improved stability by removing ability for groups to include other groups in a circular fashion
Stability with groups is improved by avoiding potential infinite recursion when attempting to include groups in a circular fashion. Circular inclusion is now detected and is no longer allowed.
User Requests and Bug Fixes in Cubit® 17.04
MESH-3608 Cubit Title Bar to include directory path and file
MESH-4649 Difference in Step File Import on Windows and Linux
MESH-4718 Pass material attribute from Cubit into Genesis
MESH-5047 Export 3dm does nothing
MESH-5633 Error message when create sideset window and using vis on/off
MESH-7453 Gui gives incorrect command for sweep surface with target plane
MESH-7467 Holes not completely identified
MESH-7472 Python loop issue, cut & paste script works, but running it doesn’t
MESH-7935 Python function to get entity color not working
MESH-8041 Issue When Grouping Curves by Length
MESH-8204 Spider to default to bar element
MESH-8295 Split Curve Location Crossing is not working
MESH-8502 Cubit Surface Selection Issue
MESH-8505 Error when reducing a bolt volume
MESH-8539 “remove cone” right click menu option replacing “remove surface” when it shouldn’t
MESH-8555 Symbol lookup error, version Qt_5
MESH-8557 ML script broken in 17.02
MESH-8569 Cubit “location last” not working correctly
MESH-8590 Cubit 16.18 and 17.02 fail to launch with PYTHONPATH set to Python 3.7
MESH-8591 Set copy_nodeset, etc not captured in journal file
MESH-8704 Parsing bug in ‘set node constraint’ command
Documentation Updates
The Cubit® 17.04 online documentation may be found here. A PDF version is also available for download. The Cubit® GUI installation also includes the full user documentation included with the program. The user’s manual may be accessed from the Help menu.
Cubit® 17.04 Contents of Release
Cubit® Program: The installation package includes executables and libraries, packaged in tar.gz files for Linux machines and a self-installing executable for Windows. Both a command line and GUI version of Cubit® are included with the installation package for all platforms.
Documentation: Both Linux and Windows versions of Cubit® include full online documentation.
Platforms Supported
Cubit® 17.04 supports the following Platforms:
Linux RedHat Enterprise 8
Windows 10 and 11
Non-Sandia Users
Cubit® is freely available for United States government use. For more information on licensing Cubit®, including academic, commercial, and all other use, go to our licensing page. For Sandia users, Cubit® 17.04 may be downloaded from the Cubit® download page.
Download a Windows installation file and double-click to install.
Linux Desktop
Decompress and extract the .tar.gz archive, then run the ‘cubit’ script in the Cubit-17.04 directory
Linux LANs
Check with your local LAN administrator for instructions on how to access Cubit® on your local LAN. In most cases typing one of the following commands at the UNIX prompt should allow you to run Cubit®. In some cases, the full path will need to be specified:
/projects/cubit/<cubit_command>
cubit
The latest released version (17.04) of Cubit® deployed to the LAN.
cubit -nogui
The latest released version (17.04) with just the Command Line and graphics window
cubit -nogui -nographics
The latest released version (17.04) with just the Command Line
cubit-17.04
Version 17.04 with GUI
cubit-beta
The latest beta version still in development
Contact Information
Cubit® Help
For general technical questions including download, installation and Cubit® technical assistance.
