Animation of 3rd party data

Altair Forum User

Hi all,

I'm a structural engineering master student currently working on a seismic evaluation of a temple structure in Portugal. For the evaluation, I have created a 3D block model of the structure and will use a discrete element code (Itasca 3DEC) to analyze the behaviour of the structure under a variety of seismic (earthquake) records. The software that I will use for the analysis has the ability to produce snapshots of the structure at regular intervals which can then be put together to make a movie of the response. However, producing the images slows down the analysis. Furthermore, since the pictures are 2D images from a specified angle, there is no possibility to rotate and view the response from other angles without re-running the model (a process that would take 3 days of computer time).

I am now looking for an alternative method for creating a movie of the response of the structure. What I want is a very lightweight solution, where I can just bring in the block model which I have and then produce the animation by feeding in the location and the three principal axis of each block at regular intervals to produce the animation on the fly. The blocks are described as prisms with the top and bottom planes defining all of the vertices. Since the model is produced as text files, I can modify the output so that it can be read and understood by the animation code. I can also bring the information in .obj or .3ds formats. The model is composed of about 180 blocks with 24 vertices per block (so 4320 vertices). The location and three unit vectors at each step describing the block axis are produced by the program and I can write them out in a way that I want.

The main issue is that the quality of the animation should be decent. If the system is vector based and allows for scaling, that would be great. I would like to be able to rotate the model in real time with simple mouse dragging without too much lag or other issues.

Someone recommended that I look into HyperView as a postprocessor. It seems HyperView has the capability to do this. However, I am not sure if it can operate with the data that I get from my program. Of course, I can reconfigure how the program outputs data to make the process more efficient.

I would be very thankful if some of the more experienced users could share their insight about this project and point me in the right direction. I am not sure if this is appropriate, but if you feel that there is another program or approach that is more appropriate for this task, I would love to hear about that as well.

Thanks,

Ali

Altair Forum User

Hi,

To do this you have to solve t problems:

1. Import the model. The solution for this problem is to convert your input deck (undeformed structure) to a format that hv can understand (Nastran, Abaqus, Dyna etc)

2. Import the results. For this I recomend hmgenres. This is an ascii to hypermesh results translator. The HyperWorks Desktop Reference Guide has examples of the format of the ascii file input

Stefan