Finding the nearest node to a point

The Find Nearest Node plug-in lets you locate the node that is nearest to a given point in a meshed model or undeformed plot. You enter the x-, y-, and z-coordinates of any point, and Abaqus/CAE shows you the closest node in your meshed model or undeformed plot. In addition, you can optionally limit the search to a particular region of the model, which is useful in large models.

This plug-in can be used with a model database (.cae) file or with the undeformed plot of an output database (.odb) file. It cannot be used in a deformed plot.

  1. From the main menu bar in the Mesh module or the Visualization module, select Plug-insToolsFind Nearest Node.

    The Find Nearest Node dialog box appears.

  2. Enter the x-, y-, and z-coordinates of the desired point, and click Find.

    Abaqus/CAE adds an annotation in the viewport, with an arrow pointing to the nearest node in the mesh. The node number and coordinates are also given in the message area at the bottom of the window; for example:Node 15 of Instance Hinge-solid-1 is nearest to the defined point (1,1,1) Coordinates of node are (0.104999999665,0.999999977648,0.04), distance from defined point is 1.64399665481

  3. If you have a large model and want to restrict the search to a smaller region, click Select Nodes for Reduced Search. Follow the prompts to pick any subset of nodes in the viewport, either individually, by angle, or by feature edge. See Selecting objects within the current viewport, for instructions. See Using the angle and feature edge method to select multiple objects, for details about selecting by angle or feature edge.

    Click Complete when you are done selecting nodes.

    Note:

    If there are multiple part instances in the assembly, you may only select nodes for reduced search on one instance.