A problem type is a collection of utilities, which allows the user to interact easily with them by means of a Graphical User Interface (GUI), and facilitates the definition and introduction of all the data necessary for carrying out a particular calculation. In order for GiD to prepare data for a specific analysis program, it is necessary to customize it. The customization is defined in GiD by means of a problem type.

The new system of problem types creation adds some additional capabilities compared with the classic one:

• It takes advantage of the XML (Extensible Markup Language) format features and its hierarchical structure. It stores data more efficiently. The elements in a XML document form a tree-structure that starts at “the root” and branches to “the leaves” with different relationships between the nested elements.
• It permits to process automatically XML documents on a physical data tree view on the GiD window for interfaces creation.
• It facilitates the automatic creation of standard windows in the data tree to enter input dates. It couples geometry or mesh entities with identical properties into the called groups using these standard windows.
• It permits to couple entities with identical properties into groups. In this way, it couples geometry or mesh entities with identical properties into the called groups using these standard windows.
• It allows to apply efficiently geometry properties and boundary conditions (i.e. constraints, loads, materials…) into groups and to edit their properties easily.
• In order to configure GiD for a specific type of analysis, it is possible to set the data tree hiding the required parts automatically.
• It allows to fix the data tree hiding concrete parts if this is convenient, for a specific type of analysis.
• It couples all the common features of the different problem types.
• It facilitates the introduction of all the data to transfer to an analysis program.