Customizing material orientation plot triads

This section explains how to customize the style of material orientation plot triads.

To learn how to customize the render style and the underlying model attributes of your material orientation plot, see Customizing plot display.

You can customize the color, length, thickness, and arrowhead appearance of the material orientation plot triad axes. You can also suppress the appearance of one or more of the triad axes; and for results with composite sections, you can display results using either the material orientation of the entire layup or one of its individual plies.

See Also
Customizing colors
Customizing plot display
  1. Select OptionsMaterial Orientation from the main menu bar or click in the toolbox.

    The triad options appear.

  2. Toggle on the buttons to the left of each of the axes to display or suppress them.
  3. Click on the color samples to select the color or colors of your choice for the visible triad axes in the plot.
  4. Drag the Size slider to increase or decrease the length of the axes in the material orientation triads in your plot. Axis length ranges from 0 to 30; the default length is 6.

    Note:

    You can specify an axis length value larger than 30 by using the Abaqus Scripting Interface. See Using the Python interpreter.

  5. From the Basis options, select Screen size or Model size as the basis for calculations of axis length in material orientation triads. If you select Screen size, Abaqus/CAE resizes the triads as you change the size of the viewport; and if you select Model size, Abaqus/CAE resizes the triads as you zoom in and out.
  6. Click the arrow next to the Thickness field, and select the axis thickness of your choice.
  7. Click the arrow next to the Arrowhead field, and select the arrowhead design of your choice.
  8. If desired, you can display a smaller subset of the material orientation triads to clarify the presentation of a plot with many triads. Drag the Symbol density slider to a value between High and Low.
  9. Material orientation based on the SORIENT output variable is plotted when Section / Layup is selected. If your results include field output from the SORIENT output variable and output from elements with composite sections, specify the material orientation you want to use. Select Material / Ply to display each ply with its own material orientation, or select Section / Layup to display the entire composite layup using the orientation specified in the composite layup definition.
  10. Click Apply to implement your changes.

    The material orientation plot triads in the current viewport change to reflect your settings.

    By default, your changes are saved for the duration of the session and will affect all subsequent material orientation plots. If you want to retain your changes for subsequent sessions, save them to a file. For more information, see Saving customizations for use in subsequent sessions.