Nodal Notation Component Definition

Open the Components toolboxes by pressing the button in the main console.

ParaCloud control two types of components:

Cellular Components: Named CAD blocks or cells that can be populated on the point-cloud geometry inheriting the orientation and scaling factors.

Nodal Notation Components: A numerically defined parametric components based on the point-cloud geometry defining a population cell between every 4 paired points of the dual point-cloud that describe a spatial cell.

The Components toolbox opens the Population Layout panel and the Nodal Notation Builder:

The layout matrix defines the component number or name to be placed according to its location in the unfolded matrix representation.

Cellular Space Definition

A cell space is defined by 8 points. Points 1,2,3,4 are on 2 adjacent point-strings of the main point-cloud. Points -1,-2,-3,-4 are on 2 adjacent point-strings of the reference point-cloud.

The cells layout unfolded representation is a matrix where each column refers to the cells between adjacent profiles (”n-1″ columns where “n” is the number of point-strings that build the cloud).

Nodal Notation Component

A component is described using pairs of place holder points defined in relation to the cell nodes (1,2,3,4,-1,-2,-3,-4). A Component is described in 4 Columns in the Nodal Notation Builder Panel where every two rows define a linear element or rule-line.

A place holder point can be defined between any of the 8 cell nodes (From P, To P) and a position factor between 0 and 1 where 0 is the (From P) node and 1 is the (To P) node. The following example describes 4 pairs of points.

The forth column is the radius value if a cylinder is to be placed between two points. It will serve as a Component Data property for future developments.

button to open to Node Selector interface. Select the first cell in the “From P” column to begin the node definition.

Select the Activate toggle to start the notation and press the node you wish to use. An entity will be defined between every two nodes you select.

Click the Pick Edge Position to switch nodes view (Cube Edges/Cube Diagonals).

Pressing the button will jump to the component number specified in the textbox next to it.

• Component Population Layout
• ParaCell Spider Component
• Point-Clouds to Matrices
• Setting the Point-Cloud Order
• Creating Performance Matrices