adding shadows and depth in Abaqus-Visualizing output of a 3D porous material

[ahmeda1]

I am looking to visualize the output of a simulation run on a 3D porous material and do not want it to look flat and homogeneous.
Is there a way I can add shadows to the nodes or use another way to add depth to a material with a lot of holes/porosity.
I am also open to ways to visualizing it in a 3rd software but so far have been unsuccessful in finding a software that can use the .odb file successfully.

All help will be greatly appreciated!

 

[FEA way]

Abaqus/Viewer offers only very basic rendering capabilities (check View --> Light Options). So you will need some external 3D rendering software. Indeed the odb format is not compatible with such programs. However you can convert .fil files to VRML and use it in 3Ds Max for example. For more information check the article "Visualization of ABAQUS Finite Element Analysis Results using 3D-Rendering Software" by Gamperle and Eberlein.