The functions that make up the result display manager controls the display and tabular output of data associated with a finite element model. The results display manager obtains its data from previously defined registers containing results data.

The results display manager uses collections of data that can be thought of as “objects” called display tools. Display tools are used to define how data is to be outputted or displayed in a viewport to the user. The display tool “object” contains a name, a tool type, an entity type, a set of targets, a set of display attributes, a posting status and, if the “object” is posted, a current data register. The methods of a display tool provides the functionality used to create, modify, post, unpost, animate or delete the display tool. The posting of a display tool will either update the graphical display of the current viewport, displaying an XY plot, or create a tabular report to present the associated data. Unposting a display tool will revert the display of the entities controlled by the tool to their previous state. Brief descriptions of the attributes which make up a display tool are listed below.

The tool name display tool attribute can be an empty string or ““, denoting it as the default tool, or any unique, valid, Patran name. The default tools can be used, reused, and modified with successive calls to the create functions. Named tools can be modified only through calls to the appropriate modification functions.

The tool type display tool attribute identifies the method used to display the results data. The methods that can be identified by this attribute are: Fringe, Deformation, etc.

The entity type display tool attribute describes what type of entities are to be displayed. This attribute can be used to identify the following entity types: Freefaces, FreeEdges, AllFaces, AllEdges, Elements, Nodes, Corners, Isosurfaces, Streamlines, Path.

The target definition display tool attribute explicitly states which types of entities in the current model this display tool can act on. If a value for this attribute is not defined, the entity types specified by the display tool whose output is being shown in the current viewport will be used. This attribute can be used to identify lists of groups, materials, property sets, etc.

The display tool display attribute defines any additional information used to control the use of the tool. Examples of the types of information that this attribute can be used to define are element shrink, label formatting, edge display styles, or component toggles.

To post a tool, a register is required so that an association will be created between the results data and the display tool. The display tool will save a copy of the register with which it is currently associated for use when the display tool is unposted.

The results display manager functions in this chapter are broken into four categories in four different sections: the Plot Tool Creation and Modification Functions, the Plot Tool Manipulation Functions, the Animation Functions, and the Plot Tool Query Functions.