From 10 to 11

Main news from version 10 to version 11. (See Detailed news from 10 to 11 for the full list of news).
General

• Ttk themed windows (experimental 'Dark GiD theme' and 'Classic theme')

Classic theme window

Dark theme window

• Faster drawing using advanced OpenGL features (Vertex arrays and Vertex buffer objects) and textures
• Plugins: new postprocess import plugins: PLY, OFF and OBJ formats
• OffScreen: to run GiD in background with graphic features without any window (.e.g. to create images in batch mode)
• Sphere and circle element support enhanced: draw as texture and more generation options
• Ground plane: can be used as floor (shadows are drawn on it) or as mirror (window View->Advanced viewing settings..)

• Automatic check if a new version is available when starting GiD.

Preprocessing

• Tetgen volume mesher inside GiD, based on Delaunay algorithm.
• Meshing in parallel. The volumes can be meshed in parallel using the number of threads wanted by the user (set at Preferences->General).
• Join volumes for geometric edition, and join surfaces preserve applied conditions.
• Edit NURBS: conversion to Bezier form for curves and surfaces.
• Draw curvature of curves by colors.
• Cartesian volume mesh with non-uniform grid spacing, size ratio, settings in preferences window and support of cartesian 'face' and 'edge' elements.
• Draw higherentity on mesh edges. (View->Higher Entities->Edge).
• Structured lines: allow to assign real size to set the equivalent number of cells.
• Option for manual creation of nodes and elements.
• GDAL plugin to import GIS files as geometric or mesh entities.
• EMA3D plugin to import cartesian meshes generated by CADfix
• STAR-CD plugin to import STAR-CD meshes
• Improvements in most meshers: rfast, rsurf, semi-structured, boundary layer, quadrilateral mesher, etc.

Postprocessing

• Results cache: Avoid load all results simultaneously in memory, and allow set maximum memory to be used.

• Node tracing: Draw of the path followed by a node in along time steps.
• Saving postprocess state (isosurfaces, stream lines and view information is saved between sessions).
• Integral: more options available in numerical integration of results.
• Creation of boundary mesh of currently visualized mesh.
• Separate connected parts in different sets.
• Render: Added two new fixed lights (switchable separately).
• Results support complex numbers: ComplexScalar and ComplexVector.

• Animation: new Macromedia Flash Video (.flv) export format.
• Create Results: added more operators (sqrt, log10, db10, db20, abs, exp, inverse, dFT).
• Creation of statistical result calculating the minimum, maximum, average or the standard deviation of other result.
• Create Graphs window: to create a graph applying some operator to another graph.
• Read of postprocess files with GiD postprocess HDF5 format written by the GiDPost library, and files with Amelet HDF5 format.
• Contour Fill/Contour ranges: option to display the range just under the cursor.
• VTK plugin to import mesh and results.
• PDF output: now outputs images in pdf format.
• PLY export: shown meshes and current nodal result can be exported in the Polygon File Format, aka. Stanford Triangle Format.
• Improvements in several algorithms: stream lines, etc.

Customization

• GiD dynamic library plug-in mechanism to load/unload dynamic libraries (developed an interface to create postprocess mesh and nodal results).
• New GiD-Tcl commands:
  • GiD_Geometry now allow also create and ask for contact-surface and contact-volume and to list the problematic un-rendered surfaces.
  • GiD_Cartesian to get and set cartesian grid properties.
  • GiD_BackgroundImage to handle background image.
  • GiD_MeshPost to create and inquire postprocess mesh.
  • GiD_Result, new 'gauss_point' and 'result_ranges_table' sub-commands to manage them.
  • GiD_Graph to handle postprocess graphs.
• Tcl-GiD events:
  • New events AfterCreateMaterial, AfterRenameMaterial, BeforeDeleteMaterial, AfterChangeMaterial, AfterAssignMaterial, BeforeMeshErrors, BeforeResultReadErrors.
  • GiD_Info events: to know the full list of raised events.
• Global Tcl variables:
  • GidPriv(HideQuadraticTypeLevel) to disable quadratic options .
  • GidPriv(PostSpaceDimension) to disable 3D results.
• Tcl packages:
  • GDAL Tcl package to read/write GIS digital terrain models from multiple formats (Arc/Info, tiff and most image formats ,etc.).
  • Vtk Tcl package to wrap vtk functionality.
  • Most Tcl packages updated to latest versions.