Viewing Individual Elements by Quality Criteria

You can display information about individual elements in the mesh according to your selected quality criterion.

You can display a 3D preview of a specific element in a separate panel. With this preview panel open, you can browse to see the element that scored the worst by that criterion. Then, you can sequentially browse the elements up to the maximum number of elements for that quality metric.

It is possible that there is nothing wrong with the worst elements. Verify the criteria options to help determine whether the elements require any improvements.

This task shows you how to:

See Also
Viewing Overall Element Quality
Viewing Failed Criteria
Editing Quality Criteria

Browse the 100 Worst Elements Sequentially

You can step through the elements from worst, second worst, third worst, up to the 100th worst element.

  1. From the Check section of the action bar, click Quality Analysis .

    Tip: You can also right-click the mesh in the tree and select Analyze to analyze the mesh quality of a single mesh. Alternatively, you can select Quality Analysis from the context menu in the Mesh Part Manager.

    The Quality Report panel appears and displays tabs containing information about the meshes in the finite element model representation.
  2. Select the Quality tab.
  3. Right-click the cell in the criterion row that corresponds to the Good or Average column.
  4. From the options at the bottom of the Quality panel, click Elements Browser .
    The Element Browser panel opens and indicates the browse criteria,"Browse on the 100 worst elements."
  5. Optional: From the visualization mode options, specify how you want to display the 100 worst elements in the 3D area.

    The visualization mode is helpful to highlight and identify elements in the model and is particularly useful when finding hidden elements.

    OptionDescription
    Displays all elements and color codes them according to quality.
    Displays the 100 worst browsed elements only (with the remaining elements displayed in wireframe mode).
    Displays the selected element only (with the remaining elements displayed in wireframe mode).
  6. Optional: In the Number of layers field, specify the number of layers of neighboring elements the app highlights around the selected element.
  7. Optional: Select Display 3D preview to display the current element in a separate preview panel.

    If you clear this option, selected elements remain highlighted in the model.

  8. Optional: Click Wireframe mode to display the mesh (or a selected subset of the mesh) in wireframe mode for both the preview panel and the model in the work area.
  9. Optional: Click Launch clipping box to open the clipping box tool, which enables you to focus on specific portions of your mesh containing the worst elements.
  10. Optional: Expand the Browse section to edit the browse criteria.
  11. Optional: Select Autofocus to zoom into the current element in the work area.
  12. Do one of the following to browse to the element you want to review:
    • Click the left arrow and right arrow to step through the worst elements in order.
    • Enter a value in the Current field to review a specific element from the worst 100 elements.
  13. Optional: Click Elements list to list each element separately.

    The extractable list of elements allows you to select an element from the list view and the display updates in both the Current element browser and the model in the work area.

  14. Optional: In the preview panel, click Display information to include element and quality criteria labels for the selected element.

Browse Poor, Bad, or Worst Elements Sequentially

You can browse the Poor, Bad, or Worst elements of a selected criterion.

You can step through all the elements that fit that criteria. For example, you might browse a list of 58 poor quality, maximal angle elements or browse a list of 12 bad quality, minimal length elements.

  1. From the Check section of the action bar, click Quality Analysis .

    Tip: You can also right-click the mesh in the tree and select Analyze to analyze the mesh quality of a single mesh. Alternatively, you can select Quality Analysis from the context menu in the Mesh Part Manager.

    The Quality Report panel appears and displays tabs containing information about the meshes in the finite element model representation.
  2. Select the Quality tab.
  3. Right-click the cell in the criterion row that corresponds to the Poor, Bad, or Worst column.
  4. From the options at the bottom of the Quality panel, click Elements Browser .
    The Element Browser panel opens and indicates the browse criteria; for example, "Browse on poor maximal angle elements."
  5. Optional: From the visualization mode options, specify how you want to display the elements in the 3D area.

    The visualization mode is helpful to highlight and identify elements in the model and is particularly useful when finding hidden elements.

    OptionDescription
    Displays all elements and color codes them according to quality.
    Displays the browsed elements only (with the remaining elements displayed in wireframe mode). The number of elements depends on the browse criteria.
    Displays the selected element only (with the remaining elements displayed in wireframe mode).
  6. Optional: In the Number of layers field, specify the number of layers of neighboring elements the app highlights around the selected element.
  7. Optional: Select Display 3D preview to display the current element in a separate preview panel.

    If you clear this option, selected elements remain highlighted in the model.

  8. Optional: Click Wireframe mode to display the mesh (or a selected subset of the mesh) in wireframe mode for both the preview panel and the model in the work area.
  9. Optional: Click Launch clipping box to open the clipping box tool, which enables you to focus on specific portions of your mesh containing the worst elements.
  10. Optional: Expand the Browse section to edit the browse criteria.
  11. Optional: Select Autofocus to zoom into the current element in the work area.
  12. Do one of the following to browse to the element you want to review:
    • Click the left arrow and right arrow to step through the worst elements in order.
    • Enter a value in the Current field to review a specific element from the total range of elements of that criterion and quality metric. For example, you can enter 7 to view the 7th of 211 poor maximal angle elements.
  13. Optional: Click Elements list to list each element separately.

    The extractable list of elements allows you to select an element from the list view and the display updates in both the Current element browser and the model in the work area.

  14. Optional: In the preview panel, click Display information to include element and quality criteria labels for the selected element.