Are orthotropic materials, such as wood or composites,
supported in Scan&Solve™?
Scan&Solve™ presently works with isotropic materials, such as metals
and unreinforced concrete, that do not have properties which vary with respect
to orientation or position in space. The ability to model orthopropic materials
is a high priority for future development.
Can Scan&Solve™ perform thin shell analysis, say for
very thin plastics?
The answer depends on the available resolution. Scan&Solve™ uses "solid" elements
to model the physical behavior of the models undergoing analysis. Large thin structures
such as thin plates and membranes will generally show qualitatively correct behavior;
however, limits on available memory and computation time will hinder detailed analysis
in Scan&Solve™.
Loads and Restraints
Can I restrain the edges and vertices of the solid?
Scan&Solve™ currently only allows faces to be restrained. Future versions of
Scan&Solve™ will feature the ability to restrain edges and vertices. However,
since restraints of this type are non-physical, the stress results in their neighborhoood
will be questionable.
Are climatic loads such as rain, snow, or wind supported?
Presently, there is no way to input these specific types of loads. However, it is possible
to simulate the effects of such weather events using directional loads or pressures.
For example, wind loads may be simulated using pressure, and snow loads may be simulated
using a vector force equivalent to a certain depth of snow.
How can I export my results?
The analysis results can be exported in HTML format only by pressing the "Report" button
in the View Tab. See the documentation on
Reporting for more information.
What formats are available for exporting the geometry?
The geometry can be exported to a Rhino mesh file, a VRML 2.0 file, an STL file, or a
PLY file. The geometry can be exported in its original form, or in its deformed state.
You can also export a textured geometry which shows the results of the analysis to a
VRML 2.0 file, or a Rhino mesh file. See the documentation on
Baking for more information.
What is the relationship between Rhino model accuracy and the size
of a single mesh element in Scan&Solve™?
The size of mesh elements in the Scan&Solve™ "mesh of space" has nothing to do with the
"mesh of boundary" in Rhino, which is used for visualization purposes only. Generally speaking,
the resolutions have nothing to do with each other, but geometric resolution is several orders
of magnitude higher than the analysis resolution. This is to be expected since geometric
computations are needed to perform numerical computations on the analysis mesh.
I installed the evaluation version of Scan&Solve™, but can't start
it in Rhino.
Scan&Solve™ is currently only supported on 32 bit installations of Windows. A 64 bit version
will be released in the very near future. The 64 bit version will not be installed in the same directory,
so the 32 bit version should be uninstalled if it is not being used.