Detection & Healing demos

These demonstrations of Infolytica’s Detect & Heal feature will show how a user can repair problems in a geometric model on the construction slice, using only a fraction of the time it would take to do it manually. For the most part, these problems exist in drawings that have been initially created for drafting purposes (e.g., DXF files) and then subsequently imported into applications such as MagNet, ElecNet, or ThermNet, which then use that drawing to formulate a model for numerical analysis.

To the naked eye, what may look like a closed region is actually a series of edges that do not touch or intersect. In order to make components, a closed region is required. Increasing the geometric tolerance alone may be sufficient to close the region, and therefore allow the user to create the component, but the tolerance may be too high for other small features in the model. This would most likely result in a mesh that falls short of the desired result. Using the Detect & Heal feature, it is now a simple matter to start with a quality finite element mesh, which is the first step towards obtaining a good solution.

Before Infolytica developed the Detect & Heal feature, the example we are using for this demo required two days of manual repair. Using Detect & Heal, we were able to reduce the time to repair to minutes. Considering the amount of time that is usually spent locating these errors, let alone trying to repair them, this enhancement’s main objective of decreasing development time substantially, and thereby allowing more time for analysis, will prove invaluable to the user.

Demos 1 and 1a

Demo 1 (step through)

This demo will demonstrate how the Detect & Heal feature can be used to locate and automatically repair problems on the construction slice.

• Tolerance is set to 10
• Edge vertices within tolerance of each other option is selected
• Dangling edges option is deselected
• Click Search - the first bad edge is detected (see #1 on diagram)
• Move the Healing Repair dialog to get a better view of the selected areas
• Viewing Operations: Click View All
  Note This step is not required but it used in this demo to get a perspective of where the bad edge is located.
• Click Heal, which automatically repairs the bad edge
• Click Next to move to the next bad edge – (see #2 on diagram)
• Viewing Operations: Click View All
  Note This step is not required but it used in this demo to get a perspective of where the bad edge is located.
• Click Heal, which automatically repairs the bad edge
• Demo 1 ends
  Note This procedure is repeated for the 24 bad edges (see #1-24 on diagram)

Demo 1a (step through)

This demo is the continuation of Demo 1.

• Begins with the detection & healing of the last bad edge on the rotor teeth.
• Click Next to move to the next bad edge – (see #25 on diagram)
• Click Heal and then Next.
  Note Demo repeats this step three times to automatically repair the bad edges around the stator coils – (see #26-28 on diagram)
• The process is finished and the Healing Repair dialog closes.
• Demo 1a ends.

Demo 2

Demo 2 (step through)

This demo will demonstrate how easy it is to locate bad edges and to heal them.

• Tolerance is set to 10
• Edge vertices within tolerance of each other option is deselected
• Dangling edges option is selected
• Click Search – the first bad edge is detected (see #1 on diagram)
• Move the Healing Repair dialog to get a better view of the selected areas
• Click Next to move to the next bad edge – (see #2 on diagram)
• Viewing Operations: Click Zoom Out
  Note This step is required to get a better view of the bad edge.
• Close the Healing Repair dialog.
• Click the Select Construction Slice Lines/Arcs toolbar button, which allows us to select a construction slice edge.
• Since the Detect & Heal function has already selected the edge we want to remove, we only have to click the delete toolbar button to remove the edge.
• Next, we will change the Snap Mode to Endpoint. Selecting Endpoint allows us to use the mouse pointer to snap to the nearest endpoint of each of the disconnected lines.
• Next, we will change the Snap Mode to Endpoint. Selecting Endpoint allows us to use the mouse pointer to snap to the nearest endpoint of each of the disconnected lines.
• Click Line toolbar button and then place cursor near one line endpoint and then snap to the other line endpoint – the connection is made and the bad edge has been healed.
• Demo 2 ends.