Merging Elements

This functionality allows to merge coincident elements of a mesh. Two elements are considered coincident if they are based on the same set of nodes.

Merge elements menu button

To merge elements choose in the main menu Modification -> Transformation -> Merge elements item. The following dialog box shall appear:

In this dialog:

• Name is the name of the mesh object whose elements will be merged.

• Automatic or Manual Mode allows choosing how the elements are processed. In the Automatic Mode all elements created on the same nodes will be merged. In Manual mode you can adjust groups of coincident elements detected by the program.

  If the Manual Mode is selected, additional controls are available:

  

  
  

  • Detect button generates the list of coincident elements found in the selected object.
  • Coincident elements is a list of groups of elements for merging. After the operation all elements of each group will be united into one element. The first element of a group is kept and the others are removed.
  • Remove button deletes the selected group from the list.
  • Add button adds to the list a group of elements selected in the viewer with pressed "Shift" key.
  • Select all check-box selects all groups.
  • Show double elements IDs check-box shows/hides identifiers of elements of the selected groups in the 3D viewer.
  • Edit selected group of coincident elements list allows editing the selected group:
    
    
    
    adds to the group the elements selected in the viewer.
    
    
    removes the selected elements from the group.
    
    
    moves the selected element to the first position in the group in order to keep it in the mesh.
    
• To confirm your choice click Apply or Apply and Close button.

In this picture you see a triangle which coincides with one of the elements of the mesh. After we apply Merge Elements functionality, the triangle will be completely merged with the mesh.

See Also a sample TUI Script of a Merge Elements operation.