Tecplot Surfaces

When data has been read in,it is easy to draw 3D meshes and surfaces, and then rotate, translate or zoom in or out.

Meshes and Surfaces.

After you have read in your data, you will see a 2D mesh. To view a 3D mesh select the "3D Cartesian" button that is near the upper left corner of the tecplot window. You should see the 3D mesh. Here is an example.

To view a surface, turn the Mesh off (click on the red box next to mesh), turn shade on (click on the gray box next to Shade). The shaded surface will be drawn.

For a smoother surface, click on "Zone Style" or choose "Zone Style" from "Plot" menu. Select "Effects" tab and select the desired zones to be smoothed. Click on "Lighting effects" and select "Gourard".The procedure is depicted in the image shown below. The gouraud shading of this surface appears later in this page.

The surface will be drawn with gouraud shading, which eliminates some of the sharp edges of the polygons that define the surface.

Rotation, Translation and Zoom.

You may rotate, translate, and zoom in or out whenever you are working with three dimensions. Select one of the x-rotate, y-rotate, z-rotate, translate or zoom button in the tools palette,from the tool bar, and then use the mouse with the left button to perform the operation.

For more control, double click the "Spherical Rotation..." button when one rotation, translation or zoom tool is selected. A window will pop-up. The operations avaialable in the pop up window is obvious. These windows can also be accessed by pulling down the "View" menu to "Rotate" or "Translate/Magnify".

The three buttons immediately next to the spherical rotation button marked as X, Y and Z may also be selected to perform rotations.

URL: http://www.msi.umn.edu/software/tecplot/tutorial

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Last modified: Tue Jan 22, 2007

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	URL: http://www.msi.umn.edu /software/tecplot/tutorial/surfaces.html
This page last modified on Monday, 12-May-2008 18:00:17 CDT
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