Visualizing the Moving Grass

You create a visualization scene that displays the grass blades colored with their segment length. The visualization scene also has annotations to display the total grass blades injected and cut in the simulation. To create an animation of the lawnmower blade cutting the grass blades, you set up a solution history file. You set up a histogram plot to investigate the variation in grass blade segment length as the lawnmower cuts the grass blades. The visualization scene and reports for the total number of grass blades injected and cut have been created on the starting file for your convenience, but you are required to complete the setup. You create and set up the solution history file and histogram plot.

To visualize the flexible fiber particles:
  1. Create a derived part to define the intact grass blades:
    1. Right-click the Derived Parts node and select New > Threshold.
      The Create Threshold dialog opens.
    2. In the Create Threshold dialog, set the following properties:
      Property Setting
      Input Parts Lagrangian Phases > Grass Blade
      Scalar Particle Bonded Component Size
      Extraction Mode All Above
      Threshold Value 9.5
      Displayer No Displayer
    3. Select Create then Close.
    4. Rename the Threshold node to Intact Grass Blades.
  2. Create a derived part to define the linked segments of the grass blades:
    1. Right-click the Derived Parts node and select New > Threshold.
    2. In the Create Threshold dialog, set the following properties:
      Property Value
      Parts Lagrangian Phases > Grass Blade
      Scalar Particle Link State
      Extraction Mode All Above
      Threshold Value 0.0
      Displayer No Displayer
    3. Select Create then Close.
    4. Rename the Threshold node to Linked Grass Blade Segments.
  3. Create a report to show the total number of grass blades cut by the lawnmower:
    1. Select the Reports > Total Grass Blades Intact and set the following properties:
      Property Setting
      Parts Derived Parts > Intact Grass Blades
      Representation Latest Surface/Volume
    2. Select the Reports > Total Grass Blades Injected and set the following properties:
      Property Setting
      Parts Derived Parts > Linked Grass Blade Segments
      Representation Latest Surface/Volume
    3. Right-click the Reports node and select New > User > Expression and rename the new report to Total Grass Blades Cut.
    4. Select the Total Grass Blades Cut node and set Definition to ${Total Grass Blades Injected}-${Total Grass Blades Intact}/${Grass Blade Segments}.
  4. Create a histogram plot for the particle bonded component size of the grass blade fibers:
    1. Right-click the Plots node and select New Plot > Histogram Plot.
    2. Select the Histogram Plot 1 node and set the following properties:
      Node Property Setting
      Histogram Plot 1 Title Histogram of Particle Bonded Component Size
      Parts Lagrangian Phases > Grass Blade
      Representation Latest Surface/Volume
      Display Mode Aggregate
      Histogram Bins 10
      Range Mode Manual
      Range Range [0.5, 10.5]
      Bin Field Function Particle Bonded Component Size
      Axes
      Bottom Axis Minimum 0.5
      Lock Minimum Activated
      Maximum 10.5
      Lock Maximum Activated
      Left Axis Logarithmic Activated
      Minimum 1.0
      Lock Minimum Activated
      Maximum 2480.0
      Lock Maximum Activated
  5. Set up the Lawnmower Scene:
    1. Open the Scenes > Lawnmower Scene and select the Scene/Plot tab.
    2. Multi-select and right-click the Domain Outline and Probe Surface nodes and select Toggle Visibility to hide the outline and line probe from the scene.
    3. Select the Lawnmower Scene > Grass Scalar node and set the following properties:
      Node Property Setting
      Grass Scalar Point Scale Mode Particle Model
      Parts Parts Lagrangian Phases > Grass Blade
      Scalar Field Function Particle Bonded Component Size
      Auto Range Off
      Min 0.0
      Max 10.0
  6. Create annotations for the scene using the reports:
    1. In the Simulation tab, right-click Tools > Annotations and select New > Simple Text and rename the new node to Grass Blade Data.
    2. Select the Grass Blade Data node and set the following properties:
      Property Setting
      Text 
      Total Grass Blades: $TotalGrassBladesInjectedReport
Total Grass Blades Cut: $TotalGrassBladesCutReport
      Default Height 0.1
    3. Drag the Grass Blade Data node to the top-left corner of the lawnmower scene.
    4. Drag the Solution Time node to the bottom-left corner of the lawnmower scene.
      The final scene should look like this:

  7. Create and set up a solution history file so that after the simulation has run, you can animate the results:
    1. Right-click the Solution Histories node and select New.
    2. In the Save dialog, set File Name to flexibleFiberGrass, then click Save.
    3. Select the Solution Histories > flexibleFiberGrass node and set the following properties:
      Node Property Setting
      flexibleFiberGrass Functions Parcel > Parcel Index
      Particle > Particle Bonded Component Size
      Particle > Particle Link State
      Particle > Particle Velocity > Magnitude
      Inputs Regions > Blade
      Lagrangian Phases > Grass Blade
      Compression Mode Lossy
      Update Trigger Delta Time
      Delta Time Freqeuency Delta Time ${Output Time Frequency}
  8. Save the simulation.