The Sources menu currently allows interactive selection of CAD (group, panel, or curve) and geometric sources that control clustering of the cells during grid generation. Sources are usually added after an initial grid generation is performed and evaluated. Then the input parameters can be tuned along with sources to create a grid that matches the exact desired specifications.

CAD sources can control element sizes (e.g. add clustering) near different CAD entities, such as curves, panels and groups. The CAD entities associated with the source are specified in the window that appears.

Geometric sources can control element sizes (e.g. add clustering) in the region around the specified geometric shape. The different shapes that can be created as sources are the following: point, sphere, line, quadrilateral, rectangular box, hexahedron, cylinder, cone, adv. cylinder, sector and curved tube. Linked sources that combine several of these shapes can also be created.

Anisotropic sources are used to stretch surface elements in one direction in the region near the source. Both geometric and CAD sources are available.

Isotropic sources are used to limit stretching surface elements due to anisotropic sources in the region near the source. Both geometric and CAD sources are available.

This option enables the creation of flexible-shaped geometric sources via panel offset. The source copies the shape of the selected base panels.

This option enables the creation of flexible-shaped geometric sources using closed volumes defined by existing panels.

This option enables automatic creation of one or more feature aligned hexahedral or cylindrical sources based on a set of specified panels.

This option opens a Source Management Window where the user can manage all the existing sources or create new ones.

This allows for another source file to be appended to the currently active sources. The option is given to keep all the current sources or to replace them with the sources in the new file.

Save Source File…

This allows for the source exchange file to be written out to disk.

Note that when saving a source exchange file, there is an option that allows the source end points to be matched with point list points. This allows for the sources to be defined based on named points that can be shared by multiple sources thus making the SRC file more general and easier to be shared between multiple cases.

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Remove all the currently defined sources.

Enable/Disable the visual display of the currently defined sources. All the sources still exist and will be written out if the source file is saved at this point. This option can help to reduce the clutter from a complicated geometry with many sources.

This option allows for the visual display of the current source sizes to be enabled/disabled. Sizes are only shown for absolute valued sources and are represented by tetrahedra drawn at the center of each CAD and geometric source. Red tetrahedra indicate the surface sizes, green tetrahedra indicate prismatic sizes and blue tetrahedra indicate tetrahedral sizes.

This option allows for sources to be drawn either as a solid shell (default) or a simple wireframe. This option toggles between the two options.

This option causes the mouse to enter a special mode where sources can be selected interactively. If one or more sources are selected, the modify source window will open for the picked source(s). This allows for easy modification of sources shown in the graphics window. This function can also be activated with the Shift+S hotkey.