Node Based Surface: Define Tab

Use the Define tab to define surfaces with individual nodes and define the surface by specifying a node set.

The layout of the Define tab changes based on your selections.

Individual Nodes

Use the Individual nodes option to define the *SURFACE, TYPE = NODE card by specifying individual node IDs.

In the graphic area, these nodes are displayed by special single node elements with a SurfaceNodes tag.

The Individual nodes option has the following buttons:

Table 1.
Button	Action
Pick Nodes	Opens the Node Selector panel, from which you can select nodes the graphic area. The selected nodes will be highlighted. The corresponding Reset button resets the selected nodes.
Add	Adds the selected nodes to the current surface and creates special single-node SurfaceNodes elements for display. The Add button does not check for duplicates and there is no Reject button.

Use the Node set option to define the *SURFACE, TYPE = NODE card for node sets.

Only one node set is allowed in a surface. A combination of node sets and individual nodes in the same *SURFACE data line is not supported.

The Node set: menu contains a list of the existing node sets.

Selecting Node set enables the following:

Table 2.
Button	Action
Review Set	Reviews the selected node sets by highlighting the nodes in the graphic area. Right-click Review to clear the review selections.
Create/Edit Set	Opens the Entity Sets panel. When you finish creating/editing the set, click return. The Node Based Surface dialog is updated with the new set appearing in the node set list.
Area	Select this check box to define the optional cross-sectional area at each node of the node set selected. Note: The cross-sectional area data item is only supported for surfaces defined by node sets.
Update	Adds the selected node set into the current surface. Engineering Solutions does not create a display for surfaces defined with node sets.