CapeSym

Table of Contents

Temperature Scale

The temperature range and color map are displayed in the Temperature Scale window, accessed from the Results menu. The temperature scale shows the units and the range of temperatures spanned by the color map. Each tick mark delineates a tenth of the range. In the example shown to the left, the units are Kelvin and red represents 500 K while blue represents 300 K. Temperatures outside the range are given the color at the limit of the range. For example, parts of the device over 500 K in this example would be displayed as red. Moving the cursor over the color map button will display the temperature represented by that color.

Changing the Temperature Scale

The Temperature Scale's range, units and color map can be changed by clicking on the color map button. The Temperature Scale Parameters dialog allows the units to be switched to Celsius or Fahrenheit, instead of the default units of Kelvin. When “Set to data range” is checked, the Temperature Scale displays the minimum and maximum temperature result over all time points and all mesh nodes in the loaded solution. When this box is unchecked, an arbitrary temperature range for the color map can be set by typing in new minimum and maximum values. The units and range are also used for the statusbar and plots.

Changing the temperature scale parameters

The Temperature Scale Parameters dialog allows a different color map to be selected. The left-most color map, solid black in the above figure, renders all temperatures with the same color. This may be useful when displaying the mesh as lines or when examining a temperature plot in profile. Solid black can be changed to another solid color by clicking on the color map button. The 2-color maps on the left in the dialog, shown as black-to-yellow and blue-to-white, also allow a different color to be selected by clicking on the color map button. For example, the black-to-yellow map can be changed to black-to-pink or black-to-green, and the blue-to-white map can be changed to purple-to-white or black-to-white. The remaining color maps display temperatures as multicolor bands, the colors of which are not modifiable. Pressing the OK button causes the new color map to be applied to the displayed graphics.

Keyboard navigation of the Temperature Scale Parameters dialog is possible because the Temperature Scale receives the keyboard focus when it is opened. So Alt-R-T (which re-opens the Temperature Scale) will shift the focus to it. Then the spacebar can be used to press the color map button and open the Temperature Scale Parameters dialog. From that point the dialog's control may be navigated by a combination of tab and arrow keys, in the usual way.

Be aware that OpenGL performs linear color interpolation between mesh points, and under some circumstances nonlinear color maps may give less pleasing results than linear 2-color maps such blue-to-red. The figure below shows the difference between a nonlinear color map and a 2-color map on the same mesh. The effect may be most apparent when a coarse mesh is displayed, or when a compressed temperature range is used on a sliced mesh.

Comparison of multi-color versus 2-color colormaps on a coarse mesh.