Engineering Solutions

Line Drag panel

Line Drag panel

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Line Drag panel

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Use the Line Drag panel to create a two- or three-dimensional surface and/or mesh or elements by dragging nodes, lines, or elements along another line.  An example of its use is illustrated in the design of an exhaust pipe.  You can create a cross section of the pipe and drag it along the curved line which represents the pipe.  Another example of its use is in the design of a window frame.  A cross section of the molding can be created and dragged along the complex curves of the frame.

 

Subpanels and Inputs

The Line Drag panel contains the following subpanels and command buttons:

hmtoggle_arrow1Drag Geoms

Use the Drag Geoms subpanel to drag existing geometry such as lines.

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Panel Inputs

Input

Action

Drag: node list / line list

Use this collector to pick the nodes or lines that you wish to drag.

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In this illustration, two lines are selected.

Along: line list

Select the guide line along which you want to drag the entities.

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use default vector / specify vector

This toggle determines the direction for the drag.

If you select use default vector, the end of the line is used as the base point and the tangent direction at the end of the line is used as the vector.

If you select specify vector, use the plane and vector collector to select the orientation vector.

Pick a base point, if required.

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(Mesh options switch)

Click the rightmost switch and select the desired mesh and surface option. For information regarding the meshing options, refer to the Automeshing section of the User's Manual.

 

Comments

The orientation vector is used to orient the line being dragged to the tangent of the guide line.

If the orientation vector is not initially pointing in the same direction as the tangent of the guide line, the section will be oriented.  This may result in the section being rotated.  To prevent the section from being rotated, select the orientation vector so that it is along the tangent of the guide line.

Line segments can be used on both of the lines by selecting points on the line.

Surfaces can only be created by dragging a planar line along a guide line.  If the line being dragged is not planar, it is projected to the appropriate plane.  The mesh w/o surf option does not have this limitation, and does not project the line being dragged to a plane.

If line drag, with mesh w/o surf selected, is used before entering the automeshing module, the placement of the displayed nodes for the "along" edges gives only an approximation of where they are actually created when the mesh is generated.  Indeed, the lines themselves are only approximations; if the drag is very complex, they may degenerate into a straight line.  This does not affect the actual mesh.

 
hmtoggle_arrow1Drag Elems

Use the Drag Elems subpanel to drag existing elements.

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Panel Inputs

Input

Action

drag: elems

Use this collector to indicate which elements you want to drag.

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along: line list

Select the guide line along which you want to drag the entities.

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use default vector / specify vector

This toggle determines the direction for the drag.

If you select use default vector, the end of the line is used as the base point and the tangent direction at the end of the line is used as the vector.

If you select specify vector, use the plane and vector collector to select the orientation vector.

Select a base point, if required.

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on drag =

Enter the number of two-dimensional elements to be created along the guide line.

bias style

Use the switch to pick between linear, exponential, or bellcurve bias.  This affects the spacing of the 2D elements created during the drag.

bias intensity =

Use this to set the strength of the biasing effect.  A value of zero indicates no biasing at all.

 
hmtoggle_arrow1Command Buttons

The following action buttons appear throughout the subpanels:

Button

Action

drag

Perform the drag.

reject

Undo the most recent drag, deleting all geometry or elements created by the drag operation.

return

Exit the panel.

 

 

See Also:

Alphabetical List of Panels