Editing the Color Palette

The Von Mises Stresses, the Displacements, the Precision, the Principal Stress distributions are employed along with a Color Palette. Editing the palette enables you to emphasize on particular values spread on the parts.

This task shows how to edit and lock the Color Palette on a Von Mises Stress display.

You can use the sample26.CATAnalysis document from the samples directory for this task.

Before You Begin:

Go to View -> Render Style -> Customize View and make sure the Edges points option is active and the Materials option is active in the Custom View Modes dialog box.

Activate the Von Mises Stress (nodal value) image by right-clicking on this feature in the specification tree and selecting the Activate/Deactivate option from the displayed contextual menu.

1. Double click on the Palette to edit it.
The Color Map Editor dialog box is displayed.

You can set the values defining:

whether you wish to compute the colors according to either the boundary or the overall model (On Boundary option).

whether you wish to modify the number of the colors (Colors Number).

using simple/advanced editing (More/Less switch button)

Imposed minimal or maximum values

2. Click on More switch button. This capability is only available if you installed the ELFINI Structural Analysis product.

	The panel is enlarged.
	A few parameters can be modified such as the Values which represent a threshold between two colors, and the display format for a Scientific or a decimal display with the corresponding number of decimal or significant digits.
	You can as well impose a particular value for a threshold in order not to modify it when setting other values.
	After each new value entered for a threshold, the list is computed to take into account the potential interactions between this threshold and the two other thresholds which flank it. If an interaction is detected, the former values are distributed taking into account if possible the imposed values.
	When you have finished to customize the palette you can click on Apply or Ok to modify the view.
	None of those parameters are saved and are only effective on one display.
	Histogram Distribution: this allows distributing the colors so that each color be assigned the same number of entities. As a result colors, are not distributed equally any more. This is only available if the `Imposed Max` and `Imposed Min` options are deactivated.

3. Modify the desired parameters.

4. Click on Apply to check if the palette fits. If yes, click on OK.
The palette dialog box disappears and the modifications will be valid only for this display.

5. You can move the Palette in the viewer. To do so, click on the Palette.
The part viewer is deactivated and the part is shaded.

6. Move the Color Palette with the middle mouse button to the desired place.

7. Click again on the Color palette to fix it there.

You can lock the palette (global maxima and minima). For this, select the part of which you want to lock the color, then right-click the color palette and select the Lock option from the displayed contextual menu. When dealing with an assembly, and if you select one part in the assembly, the palette is automatically updated and all the colors are now defined in accordance with the selected color.

You can use the Analysis2_Lock01.CATAnalysis document from the samples directory for this point.

1. Double-click an image of one part in the assembly.

The Palette is as follows:

2. Select the desired part (in the Image Edition dialog box (Selections tab), right-click the color palette and select the Lock Option from the contextual menu.
The selected color in the selected part now becomes some kind of a reference color.

The Palette is as follows (local maxima and minima now appear):

3. Select the All product in the Image Edition dialog box (Selections tab).
The colors of the whole product are modified according to the reference color. This color becomes the reference color for the whole product. As a result all the other colors are set accordingly.

The Palette is as follows (local maxima and minima are kept even though you are now using global maxima and minima):