Lecture 59: Setting up the force properties | Building Engineering Modelling and Analysis Addons in Blender | EngineeringSkills.com

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Section 1

Introduction and Basic Setup

1. Welcome and course overview

17:45 (Preview)

2. A look behind the scenes

16:25 (Preview)

3. How to take this course

07:25 (Preview)

4. Getting help and community resources

09:47 (Preview)

5. Blender and Serpens setup 📂

10:18 (Preview)

6. Visual Studio Code setup for Blender

15:51 (Preview)

7. Saving your work (and your sanity!)

07:22 (Preview)

Section 2

Serpens 101 - The Basics

8. Section overview - Serpens 101

05:54 (Preview)

9. Serpens 101 - The basics

10:57 (Preview)

10. Implementing a basic N-panel

08:44 (Preview)

11. Triggering action from the user-interface

19:06 (Preview)

12. Refactor with function nodes

15:50 (Preview)

13. Nodes versus Python scripts

03:25 (Preview)

14. Exporting your addon 📂

06:08 (Preview)

Section 3

Itemising structure elements and nodes

15. Section overview - Itemising structure elements and nodes

05:49 (Preview)

16. Setting up a nodes collection

17. Building the nodes collection update loop

18. Building the update logic for elements

19. Sub-panel setup

20. Building the node list table

21. Building the node coordinate table

22. Implementing row select functionality for nodes

23. Building the element number table

24. Building the element definition table

25. Implementing row select for elements 📂

Section 4

Building the Materials Library

26. Section overview - Building the materials library

06:18 (Preview)

27. Getting our material properties set up

28. Panel layout - material list layout

29. Panel layout - building user-input fields

30. Creating new structural materials

31. Updating the material list

32. Deleting materials from the library

33. Changing the active material

34. Updating material properties from user input

35. Synchronising structural and Blender materials

36. Refactoring to use portals for reduced duplication

37. Updating material display properties

38. Assigning specific materials to active elements

39. Selecting elements by material (and deselecting) 📂

Section 5

Building the Sections Library

40. Section overview - Building the sections library

05:25 (Preview)

41. Getting the Serpens properties setup

42. Full panel layout

43. Creating new cross-sections

44. Deleting cross-sections

45. Changing the active cross-section

46. Updating the sections library based on user input

47. Updating cross-section display properties

48. Assign, select and deselect elements 📂

Section 6

The Restraint Managament Panel

49. Section overview - The Restraint Management Panel

03:35 (Preview)

50. Setting up the restraint properties

51. Building the restraint panel interface

52. Implementing the restraint toggles

53. Adding restraints to the collection

54. Clearing all restraints

55. Adding list manipulation controls

56. Implementing restraint sorting

57. Removing duplicate restraints 📂

Section 7

The Applied Forces Panel

58. Section overview - The Applied Forces Panel

03:01 (Preview)

59. Setting up the force properties

60. Self-weight and nodal force inputs

61. Building the force display list

62. Adding and clearing all forces

63. Force list manipulation controls

64. Sorting forces

65. Consolidating force records 📂

Section 8

Adding Custom Mesh Assets to the Scene

66. Section overview - Adding custom mesh assets to the scene

07:23 (Preview)

67. Creating force and restraint mesh assets

68. Force and restraint visibility properties

69. Setting up the mesh update node functions

70. Wiring the update restraint mesh nodes

71. Loading template force and restraint objects

72. Creating restraints in the 3D view

73. Wiring up the clear mesh function

74. Clearing restraints from the 3D scene

75. Updating the mesh update function for forces

76. Setting up the force mesh update function

77. Updating and clearing forces from the 3D scene

78. Implement restraint and force visibility toggle 📂

Section 9

Implementing 3D Truss Analysis

79. Section overview - Implementing 3D truss analysis

04:44 (Preview)

80. Panel and property setup

81. Setting up the structural analysis

82. Collecting the data and blocking out our script

83. Validating and unpacking all input data

84. Review of truss analysis code - part 1

85. Review of truss analysis code - part 2

86. Packaging results back into Serpens properties

87. Implementing analysis reset 📂

Section 10

Building Data Tables and a Deflected Shape

88. Section overview - Building data tables and a deflected shape

01:33 (Preview)

89. Results panel and visibility setup

90. Building row select functionality

91. Building the nodal displacement table

92. Building the axial force table

93. Building the reaction force table

94. Deflected shape UI and property setup

95. Setting up the deflected shape function

96. Writing the deflected shape generator

97. Deleting the deflected shape 📂

Section 11

Exporting Data

98. Section overview - Exporting data

01:48 (Preview)

99. Setting up the model export panel

100. Building the export function

101. Writing the export script

102. Building the results export UI

103. Writing the results export script 📂

Section 12

Adding text labels to the 3D view

104. Section overview - Adding text labels to the 3D view

02:22 (Preview)

105. Building the node number label toggle

106. Setting up the element number label toggle

107. Calculating the element label location

108. Material ID labels

109. Section ID labels

110. Setting up the applied force labels

111. Writing a label composer function

112. Nodal displacement labels

113. Axial force labels

114. Reaction force labels 📂

Section 13

Auto-generating the Element and Node Mesh

115. Section overview - Auto-generating the Element and Node Mesh

02:51 (Preview)

116. UI Update and Serpens property setup

117. Wiring up the new UI

118. Setting up the mesh generation function

119. Scaffolding the structure update script

120. Initialising new members and nodes collections

121. Generating all mesh members

122. Transform and rotate all members into place

123. Generating all mesh nodes 📂

Section 14

Axial Force Heatmap Visualisation

124. Section overview - Axial Force Heatmap Visualisation

03:57 (Preview)

125. New UI controls and Serpens properties

126. UI for switching between colourmaps

127. Wiring up a function to generate a coloured mesh

128. Scaffolding the colourmap script

129. Implementing the mesh generation functions

130. Building the colormap functions

131. Updates to other node trees 📂

Section 15

Building the UI Control Panel

132. Section overview - Building the UI control panel

01:17 (Preview)

133. Panel setup and structure

134. Model visibility controls

135. Results visibility controls 📂

Section 16

Adding a Pie-Menu for Quick UI Control

136. Section overview - Adding a pie-menu for quick UI control

03:10 (Preview)

137. Pie-menu set-up

138. Structure visibility buttons

139. Material, section, force and restraint buttons

140. Results visibility buttons 📂

141. Wrapping up and suggestions for further development

59. Setting up the force properties

The Applied Forces Panel

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Building Engineering Modelling and Analysis Addons in Blender

Unleash the power of Blender by building custom tools to speed up your workflows

After completing this course...

You’ll be able to build custom logic directly inside Blender and build your own sharable tools in the form of addons.
You’ll understand how to add custom UI elements such as buttons, menus and panels into the Blender interface.
You’ll be comfortable using a combination of Serpens, the intuitive and user-friendly node-based development workflow and custom scripting to develop your addons.
You’ll understand how to implement custom analysis code in your addon and leverage Blender’s 3D capabilities for modelling and visualising structural behaviour.

Next Lesson

60. Self-weight and nodal force inputs