Creating Proximity Groups

You can select geometry from your model and create a set that contains all the mesh entities that are positioned within a specified distance from your selection.

For example, you can select a face and enter a distance to create a mesh group containing all of the element faces on that face and within the specified distance.

See Also
About Groups
Group Definition Methods
  1. Do either of the following:
    • To create a mesh group in the Groups container, select the Group section of the action bar and click Proximity Group .
      Tip: You can also select a point on the model, and click Proximity Group from the context toolbar.
    • To create a mesh group under a mesh, right-click the mesh in the tree and select Create Group > Proximity Group.
    The Proximity Group dialog box and the Select toolbox appear.
  2. Optional: Enter a Name for the group.
  3. Select the type of entity that will be stored in the mesh group—nodes, element edges, element faces, or elements. A mesh group can contain only one type of entity.
  4. Select the supports that will be searched for entities to create the mesh group.

    The Select toolbox allows you to choose a selection method for adding supports.

    Note: The available methods depend on the type of entity chosen in Step 3.
    • Click to select entities manually. This is the default method.
    • Click to select individual vertices.
    • Click to select edges and to propagate edge selection by angle, by tangency, by picking a path direction (arrow), or along a contour (following a free edge of the mesh).
    • Click to select faces and to propagate face selection to nearby faces.
    • Click to select volumes from a solid part. The volumes might be complete or split (partitioned).

    The supports are highlighted.
  5. Enter the Tolerance.
  6. To create a group of nodes regardless of the type of geometry you selected, select Define as group of nodes.
  7. To make the group eligible for use with simulation connections, do not select Include connection elements. This works for both groups in the Groups container and groups under a mesh.

    Note: Connections are defined in the Structural Model Creation app.

  8. Click one of the following:
    • OK to save your selections and to close the dialog box. To generate and visualize the group, you must update it.
    • Update to save your selections, close the dialog box, and update the group.
    • Cancel to cancel the modifications and to close the dialog box.
    If you click OK or Update, the group is created and appears in the tree.

Note: When you use mesh groups as supports, the symbol positioning is intended only to indicate support for the feature. The feature symbols might not cover the mesh region as they do for a similar geometry region.