Use the MBS planes panel to create rectangular, planar surfaces for use in multi-body analyses. The created entity is an mbplane.
Subpanels and Inputs
The MBS Planes panel contains the following subpanels and command buttons:
Use the Create subpanel to create a mbplane entity.
Panel Inputs
Input
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Action
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name =
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Type in a name for the new joint.
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color
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Click this button to open a standard color palette, then pick a color for the mbplane.
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Vertices' coordinates:
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Use the N1, N2, N3 buttons to define the dimensions of the plane.
| • | Click once on the green N1 button to make it active, then select a node or temp node in the graphics window. |
| • | Repeat to select two other non-collinear nodes in the graphics window for N2 and N3. |
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multibody =
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Click this button to open a list of multibodies existing in the model, then select one.
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Use the Update subpanel to update the vertices and color of an existing mbplane.
Panel Inputs
Input
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Action
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mbplane
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Use this selector to pick the mbplane that you wish to modify.
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color
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Click this button to open a standard color palette, then pick a color for the mbplane.
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Vertices' coordinates:
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Use the N1, N2, N3 buttons to define the dimensions of the plane.
| • | Click once on the green N1 button to make it active, then select a node or temp node in the graphics window. |
| • | Repeat to select two other non-collinear nodes in the graphics window for N2 and N3. |
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Use the Resize subpanel to adjust the width and length of an mbplane entity.
Panel Inputs
Input
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Action
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mbplanes
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Use this selector to pick the mbplanes that you wish to resize.
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corner 1, corner 2, corner 3
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Activate the checkboxes for the corners to be moved. Selected corners will move in the specified direction for the specified magnitude.
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direction:
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The switch provides several options for determining the direction:
| • | N1-N2: The vector from each selected mbplanes' N1 coordinate node to its N2 coordinate node. |
| • | N1-N3: The vector from each selected mbplanes' N2 coordinate node to its N3 coordinate node. |
| • | X: Move along the X axis. |
| • | Y: Move along the Y axis. |
| • | Z: Move along the Z axis. |
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magnitude
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The amount of distance to extend each selected corner.
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Use the Permute subpanel to swap plane vertices that affect either the orientation of the plane or the normal direction of the plane. Each time you click permute the plane advances through the cycle of possible permutations.
Panel Inputs
Input
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Action
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mbplanes
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Use this selector to pick the mbplanes whose possible permutations you wish to cycle through.
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The following action buttons appear throughout the subpanels:
Button
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Action
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create
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Create the new mbplane entity.
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reject
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Undoes the mos recent creation, update, resize, or permutation. Changes become permanent (cannot be rejected) once you leave the MBS Planes panel.
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update
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Update the selected mbplane according to the inputs on the update subpanel.
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resize +
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Resize the selected mbplanes along the specified direction by the positive magnitude.
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resize -
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Resize the selected mbplanes along the specified direction by the negative magnitude.
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review normals
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When clicked, the normal direction of each selected mbplane is displayed.
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flip normals
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Reverses the normals of each selected mbplane.
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permute
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Cycles through each possible permutation for the selected mbplanes, swapping plane vertices that affect either the orientation of the plane or the normal direction of the plane.
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return
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Exits the panel.
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See Also:
Alphabetical List of Panels
Plane and Vector Selector
