Post-Processing for Membrane Element FEA

[E720]

This might be a long shot but I just finished writing a membrane element FEA program in C++. I want to create "heat maps" of stress, displacement, etc. I was going to just have the program write a .obj file OR a .eps file, both of which types I have used before. Before starting this though I wanted to know if anybody else has done this or if there is a better answer. I know the easiest would probably to be to do it in matlab but I don't want my program to be dependent on Matlab.

Thanks,
E720

Oh and to clarify they are just 2d elements.

 

[E720]

After an evening of exploring it seems like having the program spit out a post script file will be the easiest.

 

[klaus.]

well ... to do graphic output is sometimes more 'work' than element programming
As an old fortran programmer I know that 'problem'
but using C++ or C# should be easier ......but you probably need some addon or graphic libraries .....
in Fortran I user Winteracter

other possibility is to transfer your data to any other comercial program to display the results
many ways to do that ....

 

[E720]

Thanks Klaus, I think that the Adobe Postscript .eps file will work well for me. I basically just need to "connect-the-dots" and then I plan on just filling in the element with a color, red = max stress, blue = min stress and linear interpolation of rgb values inbetween. Once I get it working I will post what it looks like

 

[klaus.]

many many year ago at the university I wrote once an postscript output routine for the FE Program ( in Fortran) ...
It is possible...yes .... but I am sure there are nowadays much easier ways to do it

 

[E720]

I didn't get the coloring to work correctly so I just print out the stresses at each gauss point. I have attached an example of what I am talking about. I plan on putting a header, project information, etc. still.