The properties view pane is a vital part of the interface. It displays a list of all the settings that can be changed of the selected entity. In the picture below, an empty property pane is shown. It will be automatically populated when an entity is selected.
There are too many properties in CivilFEM to list here. Instead, properties for different entities of the model are documented in the relevant manual section.
There are many kinds of properties, including number fields, text fields, dropdown lists and clickable links. Properties are organized in categories that can be expanded and collapsed with the + button. The property name appears in the left column, and the editable value appears in the right column.
Whenever something in the project is clicked or selected, its properties are displayed in the Properties Bar. For example, selecting objects in the Entities viewbar or clicking items in the Groups view shows the relevant properties in the Properties Bar.
Moreover, all properties also have a description that provides additional information about what the property is used for. This is displayed in a panel at the bottom of the Properties viewbar. It is worth keeping an eye on this since it can contain useful hints and tips. This description appears in the bottom part of this viewbar.
Shows or hides the containers with the the model entities
The model entities dockable window allows the user to see all created entities.
"All" button is selected by default, so the whole group of entities are shown.
On the other hand, if user only wants to visualize a particular group, top buttons are available to be used.
When the user clicks on any of these buttons, only that group will be shown on the entities window pane.
Moreover, this option is useful if the user has sorted the elements in different groups instead of using the group that CivilFEM establishes by default.
On the other hand, the internal entity tab works as follows:
Nevertheless, manual selection is also possible. User may use the "Ctrl" and "Shift" keyboard keys in order to create a selection.
Command line allows the execution of individual commands.
The main difference between the command line and the script editor is that the command line is not able to execute a whole set of commands, just like the script editor can. Only single line commands can be executed.
On the other hand, command line is capable of executing the "run" command, linked to the script editor line numbers.
Run command works as follows:
This means that CivilFEM will execute lines from the 12th to the 25th of the code present in the Script Editor.
Moreover, it is also possible to recall commands which has been previously executed, using the upper arrow key.
Script editor can execute Python code scripts. While the script editor is executing a script, CivilFEM updates the model according to the executed commands.
This script editor is easily used as it is only necessary to copy the script code and paste it before executing it.
It is not advisable that the user deletes the first command line of the Script editor (# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-)
Once the script has been pasted in the script editor, the user can execute it by clicking the run button. The order can also be executed by pressing F5, aswell.
The main use of the group selection dockable pane is showing a structured view of the existing groups in the model.
Groups view can be used for quickly selecting groups of entities (elements, materials, etc). This allows quick interaction with a large set of entities in the model.
If the user wants to create a group:
The entities that are going to be part of a group must be created before adding them to a group.
Inside "Enviroment" tab, the select tool must be clicked.
Then a group of entities needs to be selected.
Once the selection is done, the user has to navigate to the group view pane.
The selection entities are kept in the "Current selection".
Adding this current selection to "Selection groups" is done by clicking on it and pressing the button. It is possible to create as many groups as the user needs.
If the user wants to change the group name, just click on the "group" and press the button.
Now all the entities of the created group can be directly selected just by clicking on the group name. This is useful for plotting of results in group elements, for instance.
More information can be obtained under the "Select" tool help.
Shows or hides the View utils window. This window will list all the pre-defined Views and Clipping planes (they cannot be deleted) and the ones defined by user.
is selected by default, so the whole group of entities are shown.
button. It is possible to create as many groups as the user needs.
button.