2.2.2: View the Model

There are three components for controlling how a model is displayed in the Rhino viewport:

“ModelView”	sets the general display properties. These are stored in the model and stay valid until overwritten by a downstream “ModelView”-component.
“BeamView”	lets you control the display properties specific for beams. Renders e.g. the cross section as a mesh.
“ShellView”	contains the display-settings for shells.

Fig. 2.2.2.1 shows how the “ModelView”- and “BeamView”-component can be combined for rendering the beam model. In order to unfold the viewing components click on the black section headings on the components. In the “Tags” section of “ModelView” the “Elements” checkbox is on by default. This enables the display of the element's middle axis. When activated, the “Node tags”-option makes the node numbers show up. The nodes in a Karamba3D model are numbered starting with zero. The same applies to model elements. Showing their identifiers via “Element Ids” is sometimes more useful.

Fig. 2.2.2.1: “ModelView”- and “BeamView”-components are used to display a model

In case of more than one element the “Assemble”-component rigidly connects them if their nodes coincide. If working with imprecise geometry this can give unexpected results: although two elements may appear connected, there could be in fact inaccuracies in the node positions. A gap in a model usually has a large impact on its physical behavior. Enabling the display of node indexes can help to find such gaps, since there will be two node numbers in one place.