About the Virtual Stacking Management

Virtual Stacking is a subapp that aims at defining the complete stacking, that is, stacking sequence and virtual sequences/plies shapes by cells coverage. It is made of:

• The table, that is, a 2D viewer that can be panned and zoomed. Inside this table:
  • Cells have a colored background corresponding to the ply orientation color.
  • Selections are associative with the 3D area (cells coverage, real plies contours if any).
• A set of tools gathered in the Tools Palette to perform various operations on virtual plies. Some are basic operations:
  • Select
  • Repeat
  • Merging Domains in the Virtual Stacking
  • Create a New Stacking Area
  • Checking Ply Rules in the Virtual Stacking
  • Edit One Single Row
  • Edit Multiple Rows
  • Valuating Cells
  • Apply Main Stacking Sequence Laminate
  • Move Row
  • Swap Rows
  • Duplicate Row
  • Insert Blank Row (sequence or ply)
  • Cut Row
  • Copy Row
  • Paste Row
  • Select Row from Cell
  Some are advanced ones:
  • Recomputation from Grid
  • Maximize Symmetry
• A set of options to
  • Change the table display (view, entity, orientation, filter)
  • Review virtual plies
  • Manage virtual plies symmetry and columns order
  • Undo/redo actions
  • Display information
  • Import/export data
  • Highlight real plies contours
  • Merge virtual plies.
• Context menus

When activated, Lock Symmetry lets you work on a delimited zone, the operation results being automatically duplicated from that work zone to the mirror one. This symmetry is determined by the cells coverage of the virtual plies, symbolized by three zones:

• Upper zone: that is the work zone at the top of the table, colored in yellow.
• Lower zone: that is the mirror zone, at the bottom of the table, colored in gray. Results are duplicated to this zone. You cannot make selections in that zone.
• Neutral zone: The zone in the middle of the table, that contains the rest of the virtual (nonsymmetrical) plies. You work in that zone as you would in a nonlock symmetry context.