definePlaneFromEntity

Overview

This utility is used for extracting the plane points from FEM Entities (Face , Edge). These Plane points can be used to define plane in SimLab using script.

Syntax

PlanePoint1,PlanePoint2,PlanePoint3 = simlab.definePlaneFromEntity('ModelName', "EntityID(Face ID (or) EdgeID)")

User Case

• To break the symmetry models and use half portion for analysis. Refer Fig-1

• To create solid pretension for bolts. Refer Fig-2

Why we need this utility?

For above case, we will use region mesh control with plane body break option to break the bodies, but when we recorded this operation using Project > Record, the defined plane points will be hardcoded in script. When we use this script for different models, it will fail due to difference in model coordinates. In order to overcome this, we can make use of this utility to extract the plane points from groups and utilize it for plane definition.

Utility Input/output

Hint

After extracting the plane points, convert it as a string by adding "str" and remove the () using ".strip" and store it in a variable for ease of use.

Sample