Extended Command Line Entity Specification

Keyword

Description

These keywords are used the same way as in basic entity specification. For example:

draw surface all

draw surface 1 to 5 step 2 curve 1 to 3 in body 4 to 8 by 2

draw hex in face in surface 2

draw face common_to volume 1 2

draw node in hex in face in surface 2 curve 1 2 5 to 50 except 2 3 4

draw volume 10 include similar

list block in hex 10

Not flips the logical sense of an expression - it changes true to false and false to true. For example:

draw surface with not is_meshed

The "of" operator is used to get an attribute value for a single entity, such as "length of curve 5". Only attributes that return a single numeric value may be used in an "of" expression. There must be only one entity specified after the "of" operator, but it can be identified using any valid entity expression. An example of a complete command which includes the "of" operator is:

list curve with length < length of curve 5 ids

These logic operators determine how multiple criteria are combined.

draw surface with length > 3 or with is_meshed = false

These relational operators compare two expressions. You may use = or == for "equals". <> means "not equal". For example:

draw surface with x_max <= 3

draw volume with z_max <>12.3

In the case of = or == you may include a tolerence parameter for these relational operators rather than needing to write a more lengthy inequality with >= and <=. For example:

draw curve with length = 5 tolerance 1e-3

These arithmetic operators work in the traditional manner.

draw surface with length * 3 + 1.2 > 10

Parentheses are used to group expressions and to override precedence. When in doubt about precedence, use parentheses.

draw surface with length > 3 and ( with is_meshed = false or x_min > 1 )

the ID of an entity

The length of a curve or edge

The area of a surface.

The volume of a volume.

Works for curves with an exterior angle greater than (>), less than (<), or equal to (=) a given angle in degrees. This is used if you want to do some operation, such as refinement, on all the reentrant curves or curves with surfaces that form a certain angle.

Radius of an arc or blend surface.

Compares the normal of a surface to a vector.

draw surface with normal 1 0 0

The given vector is normalized to a unit vector for comparison. The two vectors are compared using the magnitude of the difference between them. A default tolerance of 1e-6 is used unless specified.

draw surface with normal 1 0 0 tolerance 0.001

Compares the element type of a block.

select block with type "tetra10"

The element type needs to be in quotes. The generic element type can be used to select any order of that element type. For example:

hex => hex8, hex20, hex27

Whether a Volume has a duplicate (exact copy of itself at the same location)

Whether a geometric entity has been meshed or not

Whether a geometric entity is defined using a NURBS representation. Otherwise the entity has an analytic representation.

Whether a geometric surface is a blend. Blends have a constant principal radius of curvature and meet two or more adjoining surfaces at an angle of approximately 180 degrees. "Fillets" are examples of blend surfaces.

Whether a geometric surface is a chamfer. Chamfers are thin surfaces bounded by surfaces where the exterior angle is approximately 45 or 225 degrees.

Whether a geometric surface is planar.

Whether a geometric surface is periodic, such as a sphere or torus.

A geometric entity is a sheetbody if it is a collection of surfaces that do not form a solid.

The number of elements owned by this geometric or exodus entity. Only elements of the same dimension as the geometric entity are counted (number of hexes in a volume, number of faces on a surface, etc.). For an exodus entity, all contained mesh entities are counted.

The topological dimension of an entity (3 for volumes, 2 for surfaces, etc.).

The x, y, or z coordinate of the entity's bounding box center point projected onto the entity.

The x, y, or z coordinate of the minimum extent of the entity's bounding box

The x, y, or z coordinate of the maximum extent of the entity's bounding box

Whether a geometry entity has a merge flag on. All geometric entities have one set by default.

A flag that specifies whether an entity is virtual geometry. An entity is virtual if it has at least one virtual (partition/composite) topology bridge.

An entity "has_virtual" if it is virtual itself, or has at least one child virtual entity

An entity "is_real" if it has at least one real (non-virtual) topology bridge.

Used to specify geometry entities with a specified number of parent entities. May be used to find "free curves" where num_parents=0 or non-manifold curves where num_parents>2.

Used to specify geometry entities without parent entities. May be used to find free curves and vertices where num_parents=0 or free surfaces that do not form a solid (sheet bodies).

Used to specify elements which have been assigned to a block. This is also useful to find elements NOT assigned to a block by using "not block_assigned".

Used to specify geometry entities which have been assigned a specified scheme. The scheme name is specified with the keyword string used when setting the scheme. Wildcards can also be used when specifying the scheme name. For example, draw surface with has_scheme '*map' will draw surfaces with scheme map or submap.

Used with the include keyword. Compares a list of geometry entities and adds additional entities that are classified as similar. Implemented for curves, surfaces and volumes. Similar is defined as the same geometric length, area or volume using a tolerance of 0.1 percent, as well as the same number of child entities. For example, "draw volume 10 include similar" will draw all volumes with the same geometric volume and number child surfaces as volume 10.

Used with the include keyword. Compares a list of surface entities and adds additional adjacent surfaces that are part of the same cavity. Implemented only for surfaces. A cavity is defined as the collection of surfaces bounded by curves where the exterior angle is greater than 180 degrees. For example, "draw surface 10 include cavity" will draw surface 10 along with the cavity to which it belongs.

Used with the include keyword. Compares a list of surface entities and adds additional adjacent surfaces that are part of the same hole. Implemented only for surfaces. A hole is a special case of a cavity that includes at least one cylindrical surface. For example, "draw surface 10 include hole" will draw surface 10 along with the hole to which it belongs.

Used with the include keyword. Compares a list of surface entities and adds additional adjacent surfaces that are part of the blend_chain. Implemented only for surfaces. A blend_chain is defined as the collection of attached surfaces that have the same minimum radius of curvature. For example, "draw surface 10 include blend_chain" will draw surface 10 along with the blend_chain to which it belongs.

Used with the include keyword. Compares a list of surface entities and adds additional adjacent surfaces that are part of the chamfer_chain. Implemented only for surfaces. A chamfer_chain is defined as the collection of attached surfaces that have the same width and are bounded by exterior angles of 135 and/or 225 degrees. For example, "draw surface 10 include chamfer_chain" will draw surface 10 along with the chamfer_chain to which it belongs.

Used with the include keyword. Compares a list of curve or surface entities and adds additional adjacent entities that are continuous. Implemented for curves and surfaces. For surfaces, continuous is defined as the collection of attached surfaces that are bounded by curves where the exterior angle is approximately 180 degress (tolerance = 15 degrees). For curves, continuous is defined as the collection of attached curves that are bounded by vertices where the angle is approximately 180 degrees (tolerance = 15 degrees). For example, "draw surface 10 include continuous" will draw surface 10 along with other surfaces within the same continuous collection.

Used with the include keyword. It will include additional geometry entities of the same dimension that are within a small distance of the specified entities. Implemented for curves, surfaces and volumes. The distance tolerance is automatically defined relative to the size of the entity(s). An example use case would be, "draw volume 10 include nearby" which will draw volume 10 along with volumes that are within a small distance of volume 10.