Mapping Search Control Options

If you choose Relative (the default), the tolerance values are interpreted as a fraction (not percentage) of the average element characteristic size in the meshed model. If you choose Absolute, the tolerance values are taken as exact distances measured in the length units used in your model.

Any source points within this distance, as measured along the positive normal vector of the underlying geometry of the target surface, are mapped and included in the simulation (see Mapping Search Controls). The default is 0.3 of the average element characteristic size in the meshed model.

Any source points within this distance, as measured along the negative normal vector of the underlying geometry of the target surface, are mapped and included in the simulation. The default is 0.05 of the average element characteristic size in the meshed model.

This tolerance specifies the in-plane distance within which a source data point must lie, outside the region of the elements of the meshed target model (see Figure 1). Increasing this tolerance from the default of 0.3 (of the average element size) effectively allows you to expand each target element face for mapping. Increasing this tolerance might be helpful when the source data are a coarser mesh than the target model mesh.

The field values are interpolated when they are mapped onto the target model.

Boundary search distance

Any source data points that lie outside the neighborhood search tolerance are ignored and are not used in the analysis.

The Abaqus solvers uses a distance weighting algorithm to interpolate the field data values on the meshed target model. The Abaqus solvers always tries to interpolate the source values on the target. If any points are found for which interpolation is impossible, a distance weighting algorithm is used that will take nodes within the neighborhood search distance. Distance weighting does not consider any other existing tolerances (positive/negative normal search tolerances or boundary search tolerance). You can deactivate distance weighting by using a very small neighborhood search distance, in which case the Default unmapped field value is applied at these nodes.

The Abaqus solvers makes three passes when attempting to map source points onto target points:

1. Tries to interpolate field values on the target. The neighborhood search tolerance is ignored on the first pass.
2. Uses the distance weighting algorithm to take source points within the neighborhood search tolerance.
3. For any target points that remain unmapped, the Default unmapped field value is applied.