cee::vtfx::GeometryBlock

class GeometryBlock : public Block 

A block defining all the geometries in a VTFx database.

There must be only one GeometryBlock in each database defining all the geometries.

In a given database, the unique GeometryBlock contains one or more geometries. Each geometry is a collection of ElementBlocks, and each ElementBlock is defined by a collection of elements based on a collection of nodes. In other words, an ElementBlock defines a finite element mesh, a geometry is a collection of meshes, and the unique GeometryBlock is defined by all the meshes in the database. Bear in mind that each state of the database must have the same number of geometries. The total number of geometries in the unique GeometryBlock is thus, (number of states) x (number of geometries per state).

Furthermore, an element block is associated to a part, which also has a name, an id, and visual properties. A part is what will be displayed in the Ceetron 3D Viewer or CEETRON Envision-based application when the file is opened. You specify the id of the part when setting or adding element blocks to a geometry, in the setElementBlocks or addElementBlock methods. The part id is used to define part properties, such as rendering properties (see CaseBlock), or to define its name (see GeometryInfoBlock).

Geometries with a constant topology

A widespread scenario is that of a geometry in which the elements in its element blocks are the same in every state. In this case, you use the setElementBlocks/addElementBlock methods to specify the unique element blocks used by the geometry in each and every state.

Geometries with changing topologies

If some or all of the elements in the element blocks of a geometry change from one state to another, all element blocks of this geometry need to be defined for each state. This is done using methods setElementBlocksForState() or addElementBlockForState() for each state. Of course, if some of the elements of the element blocks do not vary from state to state, the element block ids can be reused when calling these methods: there is no need to create a separate copy of them for each state.

Please note that it is mandatory to specify the geometry for all states.

Using multiple geometries

In most cases, a single geometry containing all element blocks will fulfill your needs. However, there may be cases where defining multiple geometries is the best solution:

You have a combination of static and adaptive topologies in your model, and would like to represent this as efficiently as possible. One example is in material forging, where the dies might have a static topology whereas the billet is remeshed for every increment.
You are going to open this file in an application (e.g. your app based on CEETRON Envision) and you like have multiple cee::ug::DataGeometry in your data model.

For further information on states and geometries with changing topologies, please see the documentation and StateInfoBlock.