Stress Contour Over Range Color
Hi everyone ( @Anonymous , @kseminsky , @jbm )
The color used when the result is above the range appears to be either green or gray/white depending on which default contour is used. In a linear static stress analysis, this is what I see:
- "Deformed" contour: results above the "Data Max" value are shown as green.
- "Von Mises" contour: shown as gray/white.
- "Displacement" contour: shown as gray/white.
- "Safety Factor" contour: shown as gray/white.
- New contour: shown as gray/white.
I notice that if the minimum value is less than the "Data Min" value, the color is still shown as blue, not green, not gray/white, not some other color. See the image below.
So these are the important questions:
- When the result value is greater than the contour "Data Max", what color should be shown on the model?
- Red? (or the color at the top of the legend)
- gray/white?
- Some other color?
- When the result value is less than the contour "Data Min", what color should be shown on the model?
- Blue? (or the color at the bottom of the legend)
- gray/white?
- Some other color?
(Personally, I prefer to use the same color as the legend regardless of whether the result is outside the range or not.)
Figure 1: What color to use when the result is out of range?
The results at (1) are less than the minimum value (A). Should the color be blue or something else?
The results at (2) are greater than the maximum value (B). Should the color be red or something else?
Hi @kseminsky
Your suggestion for a radio button to choose whether to show a gray/white color or the normal red/blue color when the result is outside the range of the legend is exactly what the developers suggest. Great idea!
I submitted a formal change request. Now we just need to give those guys the time to make the change.
@John_Holtz wrote:Hi everyone ( @Anonymous , @kseminsky , @jbm )
The color used when the result is above the range appears to be either green or gray/white depending on which default contour is used. In a linear static stress analysis, this is what I see:
- "Deformed" contour: results above the "Data Max" value are shown as green.
- "Von Mises" contour: shown as gray/white.
Hi John,
it's not so easy, as you describe. The over range color depends on the rendering type and not limited to white and green. There is also some kind of random function in it, so it is not reproducible.
In "Continuous" and "Gouraud" mode the over range colors are always the start and end colors of the bar (red/blue). In "Fringe" mode the color below min is always the color of the min value, normally blue, or red with flipped range. The color above max can change randomly when you edit the number of levels. But even with the same umber of levels there can be different colors, depending what level numbers you tried before (compare the last two samples). I guess this is simply a bug.
With "Line" mode or using "Iso-Surfaces" there is no over range color. The over range area is left blank (transparent).
@John_Holtz wrote:Figure 1: What color to use when the result is out of range?
The results at (1) are less than the minimum value (A). Should the color be blue or something else?
The results at (2) are greater than the maximum value (B). Should the color be red or something else?
I personally prefer the max and min colors for the over range colors, like it is in "Continous" and "Gouraud" mode (Inventor's Stress Analysis does it the same way). But I prefer "Fringe" mode in general. On the other hand it often is helpful to see just a small range of the result spectrum and have the rest of the model transparent like it is in "Line" mode or with "Iso-Surfaces". But here I miss the deformed shape of the mesh. And yes, I can understand the some users like to have separate colors for the over range areas.
So the best would be to have options for the over range colors like this proposal:
There is a checkmark to select if the over range area is colored or left blank (transparent) an a button to chose the color, if the checkmark is selected. The default should be colored with the colors of the min and max colors of the color bar.
The results could be like this:
I faked the last one with iso surfaces, but it should look similar in fringed or continuous mode. Comparing the last two pictures, you see the benefit of the transparent option, when searching e.g. for high stresses in a more complex model.
