General Structure

AcuConsole has three main windows including the Data Tree, panel and the visualization window.

The Data Tree window shows a directory structure of the data and options (functions) available. The items on this tree range from Problem Description, physics to be solved, Material Models, air, water, Auto Solution Strategy, function to build a strategy based on the specified physics and other options, to Surfaces, current surfaces of the problem, inflow, wall, and so on, each having children such as Simple BC and Surface Output.

Double clicking on an item in the data tree opens up the panel window with the specific options of that item. For example, double clicking on the Problem Description brings up menu items on the panel window for specification of problem mode, Steady or Transient, whether or not there is thermal problem, type of turbulence model, number of species in the problem, and so on.

Finally, the visualization window provides a 3D visualization of the model, allowing you to transform the model, rotate, zoom, span, display surfaces, volumes and nodes in various forms, facilitate grouping, moving a surface from one group to another, and more.

This documentation shows how you can add customized items to the Data Tree, define and attach panel with customized menus to such items. These are accomplished by writing special Python modules using functions provided by AcuConsole, and then hooking them up to AcuConsole.

The entire state of the problem is saved in the database, opened by you at the start of the session. All data presented on the panel menus are automatically extracted from the database and put back in the database, upon change by you. In other words, the data base is the unique and complete picture of the current problem.

This has two important implications:
  • Any panel can obtain or change any data in the database; this by construction will change the behavior of all panels using that data
  • A customized panel can create its own private data independent of those used by the main windows.

This means that you can write a customized panel that contains private information, that is, not interpreted by built-in panels and functions of AcuConsole, while able to change the build-in data, such as physics and BCs, and ultimately is passed to the AcuSolve input file.