MotionView CAD Interfacing

MotionView supports the importing of several types of CAD and FE formats.

CAD files can be imported in two ways:

Import Geometry

This tool can bring in a CAD data file into MotionView to create bodies and graphics. The graphics created are of the type CADGraphics. The CAD file is directly used and components are represented as Parasolid objects. The mass and inertia properties are calculated for individual components and this information gets aggregated as the mass and inertia properties of the body that the components belong to. The Body has their properties set to get properties from graphics.

Refer to the Import Geometry topic to learn how to import a CAD file using this method.

Import CAD/FE using HyperMesh

This tool uses HyperMesh in the background to import CAD or FE files as bodies and graphics. The graphics created are of the type File that refers to an H3D file that is generated by HyperMesh.

MotionView invokes HyperMesh in the background which imports the CAD into a component collector. The surfaces of the components are meshed and exported to a specified graphic H3D file for visualization in MotionView. Each component collector is brought into MotionView as a body, and the mass and inertia properties are determined on a unit density basis (provided HyperMesh is able to create a solid entity successfully). You then have the option to specify density for each body based on which the actual mass and inertia are assigned to the bodies. You also have to declare the unit of original file (CAD or FE) so that MotionView can calculate mass, inertia, and CG in the units set in MotionView.

The import tool also has a feature to launch HyperMesh, works interactively to mesh the surfaces as chosen, and select nodes that can be imported as points.

Refer to the Import CAD or FE using HyperMesh topic for additional details regarding using the CAD import feature.