Types
Every wire between two blocks carries a value of one type: a Solid, a Number, a Mesh, a Load Case. An input takes its own type, and some take others too — a Number input takes a Solid as its distance field. These are the 49 types the blocks use.
- Axis — A line in space with a direction: an origin and a unit direction, such as the axis of a cylinder.
- Bounding Box — A box aligned with the axes, given by its two opposite corners.
- Curve — A curve in space, kept as a chain of short straight pieces.
- Frame — A coordinate system: an origin and three axes at right angles.
- Plane — A flat plane in space, with an origin, a normal and axes of its own.
- Point — A position in space: x, y and z in mm.
- Profile — A closed flat shape in a plane, such as a circle or a rectangle.
- Solid — A body.
- Transform — A move, turn or scale in one: the map from one coordinate system to another.
- Beam — One beam of a lattice: its two end points and its thickness at each.
- Beam Graph — The beams and points of a lattice with their thicknesses, without the lattice around them.
- Cell Grid — Where the cells of a lattice go and how each one is turned: a grid of cells inside a part or on a surface.
- Lattice — Points joined by beams, each beam with its thickness.
- Lattice Cell — One cell for a lattice block to repeat, such as a Custom Cell.
- Voronoi Cell — One cell of a Voronoi foam: its corner points and its edges.
- Print Process — How a part is printed: its build direction and the smallest feature the printer makes.
- Mesh — A surface made of triangles.
- Quad Mesh — A surface made of four-sided faces, or mostly of them.
- Tet Mesh — A volume filled with tetrahedra, for analysis and export.
- CAD Body — One body of an imported part, with its faces and edges.
- CAD Edge — One edge of a CAD body.
- CAD Face — One face of a CAD part, with the surface coordinates a cell grid can follow.
- Part — An imported CAD file: its bodies, each with its faces and edges.
- Closest Point — The point of a surface nearest to a given point, its distance and the surface's normal there.
- Mass Properties — A body's mass, volume and centre of gravity.
- Analysis Body — A Solid ready for analysis: its material, and whether it is treated as a solid or as a thin wall.
- Analysis Result — What Static Analysis found: the stress and the displacement everywhere in the part.
- Boundary Condition — One load or one support, and where it acts.
- Connection — How two bodies meet: touching, tied together or bolted.
- Face Set — Faces of a body, where loads, supports and measurements act.
- Load Case — The loads and supports a part has to carry, together.
- Material — A material for analysis: its stiffness, its density and the stress at which it yields, the same in every direction.
- Region — A part of a body's volume, chosen with a Solid, where a measurement or a rule applies.
- Limit — A rule an optimized part has to keep: a constraint, such as its material budget or the stress it may carry, or a design-space rule, such as Keep Solid or Symmetry.
- Metric — A quantity measured on a part, such as its stress or the load factor at which it buckles.
- Topology Result — What Topology Optimization found: the material density everywhere in the design space, at every saved iteration.
- 2D Vector — Two numbers, x and y: one value, or a field that changes from point to point.
- Number — A number: one value, or a field whose value changes from point to point.
- Vector — A direction or a distance along one: x, y and z.
- Yes/No — Yes or no: one value, or a field that is yes in some places and no in others.
- Anything — A value of any type: what a list tool such as List Element gives back, the type of what it was given, or the items of a list of any one type.
- Choice — One of a fixed set of choices.
- Color — A colour: red, green, blue and opacity, each from 0 to 1.
- Column — One column of a table: a header and rows of text.
- Dictionary — Pairs of keys and values: a list of keys and a list of values.
- Table — Named columns, each with rows of text.
- Text — A piece of text.