What are arrow and text annotations?

Arrow and text annotations are arrows and text strings that you create in a viewport to enhance the appearance and clarity of displayed models or results. You can create arrow annotations and text annotations independently, and you can create arrows and text together to automatically position text at the end of an arrow. The positions of annotations in a viewport are controlled by anchor points. You define each anchor point based on viewport geometry or model coordinates; the method you choose determines how Abaqus/CAE moves the annotations. If you manipulate the viewport, Abaqus/CAE repositions any annotations anchored to viewport geometry; similarly, if you manipulate the model, Abaqus/CAE moves any annotations anchored to the model. Figure 1 shows the use of arrows and text to describe details of a model.

See Also
Components of the main window
Working with viewports
Working with viewport arrow and text annotations
Figure 1. Arrow and text annotations.

Annotation editing operations require you to first select one or more annotations. Use the Edit Annotations tool from the Viewport toolbar to select arrow or text annotations from the current viewport. Abaqus/CAE highlights selected arrow or text annotations along with their anchor points, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Selected annotations: an arrow with no offsets, text with an offset, and an arrow with gaps at both ends and an offset between the tail and its anchor point.

Anchor points are shown as a small dot with an anchor symbol placed nearby. Dashed lines indicate an offset between the anchor point and the annotation; circular handles are the anchor connection points—if there is no offset, the connection point and anchor point are the same.

Arrow annotations have two anchor points (you can use the same coordinates for both points). You can add a gap between the arrow ends and the connection points. Adding a gap is comparable to leaving a space between dimension lines and object lines in the Sketcher or in a CAD drawing; it can increase the clarity of your annotation. Text annotations have a single anchor point. You can change the offsets by dragging the connection points, or the entire annotation, in the viewport.

Do not confuse the viewport annotations that you can create with the viewport annotations generated by Abaqus/CAE. The generated viewport annotations include the view orientation triad; the 3D compass; and, in the Visualization module, the legend, the title block, and the state block. You can modify some display aspects of the generated annotations, but you cannot modify their contents. For more information, see Customizing viewport annotations. In contrast, you have full control of all attributes related to arrow and text annotations including their colors, line styles, line thicknesses, arrowheads, fonts, anchor points, and any offsets between the anchor points and the annotations.

Abaqus/CAE saves arrow and text annotations in model and output databases; however, viewports are not saved. As a result, the arrow and text annotations in a database are not associated with a viewport. When you subsequently open a database that contains annotations, you must use the Annotation Manager to display a selected annotations in the current viewport. The Annotation Manager also allows you to copy annotations from a model database to an output database and vice versa. You cannot create annotations in a model database from the Visualization module; open the model database in a different module if you want to create annotations for it.