Introduction

The View > Toolbars > Attributes Toolbar provides icons for quick access to the model attributes (materials, loads, constraints, etc.) in the Model View display area. Attributes are displayed as symbols, labels, colors, etc. Note: enabling the “ID:” (or similarly labeled) check boxes in the Section Properties, Thickness, Material, Load, Constraint or p-Discretization tabs will enable the corresponding attribute toggles.

To control scaling of the attribute symbols, you must interact directly with the “Scale:” input field in the corresponding Class tab (e.g. Load, Constraint). Note that a finite element mesh must be present to display attribute symbols. For more information on the symbols used for load and constraint attributes, refer to Graphic Feedback Convention Overview.

Below are brief descriptions of commonly used Edit Toolbar icons (Figure 1):

• Clicking the Display Materials icon will draw labels of the material definition assignments for each element in the mesh.

• Clicking the down arrow of the Display Materials icon (Figure 2) allows the user draw the material ID’s (Names), material principal directions (Arrows) and/or laminate stack assignment colors (Colors).
  • Note: since rendering times will be dependent on the Element Resolution, it is a good practice to decrease the Element Resolution to <=5 before drawing material attributes for large models (i.e. >100k elements) or when drawing material arrows for models with ply-by-ply material assignments.

• Clicking the Display Loads icon (Figure 3) will draw load attribute symbols for the currently selected load ID.

• Clicking the down arrow of the Display Loads icon allows the user to draw the load attribute symbols for any load ID. If “None” is selected, no load attribute symbols will be displayed.
  • Note: the scaling (sizes) of attribute symbols will depend on the relative magnitudes of the applied input data for each load ID by the selected Scale on the class tab (automatically computed if not defined).
  • Note: since rendering times will be dependent on the Element Resolution, it is a good practice to decrease the Element Resolution to <=5 before drawing load attributes for large models (i.e. >100k elements).

• Clicking the Display Constraints icon will draw constraint attribute symbols for the currently selected constraint ID (Figure 4).

• Clicking the down arrow of the Display Constraints icon allows the user to draw the constraint attribute symbols for any constraint ID. If “None” is selected, no constraint attribute symbols will be displayed.
  • Note: since rendering times will be dependent on the Element Resolution, it is a good practice to decrease the Element Resolution to <=5 before drawing constraint attributes for large models (i.e. >100k elements).