OOF2: The Manual

The analyses performed by this page are all computed on data from a particular time. If the solution was a static solution, it contains only one time, and the Time Controls are irrelevant. If the solution was a time evolution, the Time Controls determine the time at which the analysis will be done.

Figure 3.26 shows the Time Controls from Figure 3.25. The central box displays the selected time. A new time can be selected by simply typing it into the box, or by using the buttons on either side. The buttons will only change the values to times that are stored in the Mesh (that is, the start and end times, and times that were specified in Scheduled Outputs), but any time between the Mesh's earliest and latest times can be entered into the central box. If the box contains a time that's not stored, the analysis will be based on interpolated Field values.

The buttons marked “Earliest” and “Latest” in Figure 3.26 set the time to the first and last times stored in the Mesh. When these are used, the central box will read <earliest> or <latest> instead of a numerical time. These placeholders always refer to the first and last times in the Mesh, even if the mesh data changes. The default setting for this widget is <latest>.

Figure 3.26. The Time Control Widgets

This pane selects the output data which will be sampled on the mesh. The result is one of the available output types. The buttons at the top of the pane, labelled Scalar and Aggregate, determine whether the pull-down menus below them list the scalar outputs (e.g, a component of a Field or Flux) or aggregate outputs (e.g, all of the components of a Field or Flux).

The operation pane determines what actually happens when the Go button is pressed. The operation is one of the OOF.Mesh.Analyze menu items.

The region or subset of the Mesh on which the operation should be performed is selected here. The selection will be one of the Domain types, which define different ways of defining subregions of various dimensions.

When the domain is set to Cross Section, the pane will look like Figure 3.27. Cross sections are lines drawn through the Microstructure. They may begin and end on interior points or on edges. Existing cross sections may be selected with the chooser. New cross sections may be defined with the New button, which brings up a dialog box in which the coordinates of the endpoints must be typed. New cross sections can also be created graphically using the Mesh Cross Section toolbox in the Graphics window.

The remaining buttons in the cross section widget, Copy, Edit, Rename, and Remove do what you would expect them to do. When a cross section is removed from the chooser here, it is also removed from the Mesh Cross Section toolbox.

When the Domain is set to Edge Boundary, the boundary may lie between two elements, and the quantity being computed may have different results on different sides of the boundary. Therefore it's necessary to specify which side of the boundary to use by setting the side parameter to LEFT or RIGHT, as shown in Figure 3.27. See SegmentSide for a discussion of how LEFT and RIGHT are defined.

When Domain is set to Pixel Group or Element Group, it's possible to choose a group name, or <selection> to set the domain to the currently selected pixels or Elements.

Figure 3.27. Two Versions of the Domain Pane

When the domain is set to Cross Section the Domain Pane will look like the upper image. When it's set to Edge Boundary, the pane will look like the lower image. Other settings are simpler.

Outputs cannot in general be evaluated directly on the domains, they have to be evaluated at particular points on the mesh, and depending on the desired operation, the resulting pointwise data may need to be combined in some way.

The pull-down menu in the sampling pane selects a set of points on which to evaluate the output, and the result is one of the SampleSet objects.

Note that the available sample sets will depend on the current settings of the Domain and Operation panes.

The Named Analyses pane assigns a name to the current settings of the Output, Operation, Domain, and Sampling panes and allows those settings to be reloaded into the panes or to be used as a Scheduled Output during time evolution computations.

The Named Analysis pane consists of three buttons labeled New, Save, and Delete and a pull-down menu named Current.

The pulldown menu labelled Current displays the name of the current settings of the Output, Operation, Domain, and Sampling panes. If no name has been assigned to the current configuration, the menu label will be blank. Selecting a name in the menu will switch the panes to the selected configuration.

The Destination pane determines where the data generated by the analysis tool will be written. Data can appear in the message window, in a previously specified file, or in a new file.

The components of the pane are:

A file opened in the Destination pane is handled identically to a file opened as an OutputStream in the Scheduled Output page. An OutputStream created on that page will appear as a predefined destination on this page. Rewinding a file there has the same effect as rewinding it on this page.

The format of the output file can be adjusted by the OOF.Settings.Output_Formatting menu in the main OOF2 window.

The Go button in the bottom right corner of the page invokes the command in the OOF.Mesh.Analyze menu specified by the Operation pane. Data from the Output, Domain, Sampling, and Destination panes are passed as arguments to the command.

If the Go button is not sensitized, either some data is missing from one of the panes, the time widget has an invalid setting, the Mesh is out of sync with its Skeleton, or the Output is incomputable on the Mesh.