Cut a tetrahedron mesh by a plane¶
MeshCut works only with MED files and produces MED files, and is a standalone program. It can be used either directly from a command shell outside SALOME, or with a GUI interface in SMESH, provided in a python plugin that needs to be installed in your SALOME application.
MeshCut allows to cut a mesh constituted of linear tetrahedrons by a plane. The tetrahedrons intersected by the plane are cut and replaced by elements of various types, (tetrahedron, pyramid, pentahedron).
Using MeshCut as a standalone program, outside SALOME¶
MeshCut is a standalone program, reading and producing med files.
Syntax:
MeshCut input.med output.med resuMeshName aboveGroup belowGroup nx ny nz px py pz T
where:
input.med = name of the original mesh file in med format
output.med = name of the result mesh file in med format
resuMeshName = name of the result mesh
aboveGroup = name of the group of volumes above the cut plane
belowGroups = name of the group of volumes below the cut plane
nx ny nz = vector normal to the cut plane
px py pz = a point of the cut plane
T = 0 < T < 1 : vertices of a tetrahedron are considered as belonging to the cut plane if their distance from the plane is inferior to L*T, where L is the mean edge size of the tetrahedron
Using MeshCut inside SALOME¶
When the MeshCut plugin is installed, it can be found in the Mesh menu, sub-menu SMESH_plugins. If the plugin is not installed, the file meshcut_plugin.py is in SMESH installation in subdirectory bin/salome/meshcut_plugin.py.
If there are already plugins defined in a smesh_plugins.py file, this file should be added at the end. If not, copied as ${HOME}/Plugins/smesh_plugins.py or ${APPLI}/Plugins/smesh_plugins.py or in ${PLUGINPATH} directory.
From the Mesh menu, sub-menu SMESH_plugins, choose “MeshCut” item The following dialog box will appear:
MeshCut Plugin dialog box
See above for the meaning of the parameters.