Importing a Surface into STAR-CCM+

The file to be imported should be selected. Depending on the file format selected, STAR-CCM+ will prompt for various information to assist with the import process and better prepare the starting surface. Each option is described below.

Boundary Mode: The boundary mode determines how different surface patches that have been identified in the surface file are imported into STAR-CCM+ and converted into boundaries. A patch is a part of the surface that has been tagged in some way to be different from the rest (for example, has been assigned a different cell type, family name etc.). Up to three different boundary mode options are presented:

One boundary per cell type / property ID / solid (default) - This option will result in a different boundary being created for each cell type, property ID or solid depending on the input file type.

One boundary per group - This option will result in a different boundary being created for each group. A group specifically refers to cell table grouping that was previously defined in the pro-STAR or pro-surf pre-processing software supplied by CD-adapco.

One boundary for all cell types/property ID/solid - This option will result in only one boundary being created regardless of the initial number of cell types / property ID/solid definitions.

In all the above situations, the original patch definition in the import surface can be used at a later stage to further edit the boundary definitions by using the split boundary by patch option.

Units: A choice of centimeters (cm), feet (ft), inches (in), kilometers (km) meters (m) (default), miles (mi), millimeters (mm) and yards (yd) is allowed. The selection will determine the scale factor applied to the import surface to make it conform to SI (meters). For example, selecting millimeters will automatically scale the vertices by 0.001. If a unit other than one listed was used for the surface file then the meters option should be selected (equivalent to no scaling) and a user defined scaling factor should be applied to scale the mesh at any point after the import process is complete.

Database ID: When a pro-STAR database file is imported, the database ID option allows specific surface geometries to be selected should the file contain more than one.

Merge STL Vertices: When importing an STL file, this option allows the vertices for each surface element to be automatically merged or not. The default is to merge the vertices.

Vertex Merge Tolerance: For STL data, this option allows a vertex merge tolerance value (default 0.000001) to be set when the Merge STL Vertices option is set to Yes.

Set preferred units for length?: The units selected for the import can also be set as the default units for all mesh reference and input values by turning this option on. The default is to maintain all units in meters.

Open geometry scene after import?: A new geometry scene can be created automatically containing the imported surfaces. The default option for this is on.

Run diagnostics after import?: The surface quality mesh diagnostics report for the imported surface is produced in the Output window when this option is turned on.

Additional information pertaining to each file format is provided in the format and import reference. Once the options have been selected, the Open button can be pressed to import the indicated file.