About Contour and Symbol Plots

You can use contour plots or symbol plots to display field output data.

The type of results available from your simulation determine whether you can plot contours or symbols for the selected variable.

  • For result values that consist of only a magnitude (scalars), a contour plot applies color coding to your model to indicate the magnitude of the result in different regions of the model.
  • For result values that consist of a magnitude and a direction (tensors and vectors), a symbol plot uses arrows to indicate the direction of the result in different regions of the model. Color coding is applied to the arrows to indicate the magnitude of the result at each arrow, while the orientation of the arrowhead indicates the direction.

A legend associates each color with a particular value for the selected result type.