Terminology

Before you begin exploring the many features in the program, it is helpful to distinguish commonly used terminology within the help system to ensure the available resources are clear.

Entity

Entity is the common term used to describe any item that is added to your model. This may include geometry, loads, groundwater, support, etc. Every operation adds entities to the model to build up the features of the simulation. For example the geometry entities are the lines, surfaces and volumes that you can generate to define your model shape.

Boundaries

Boundary refers to vertices, edges or faces of a geometry entity to apply loads, support, search limits and other boundary conditions.

General Selection

When the entire item is selected, we generally refer to this as selecting the entire Entity. However for Geometry Entities we can also select just the Face, Edge, or Vertex of the shape. Review the Selecting topic for more information on different selection options.

In general for Geometry Entities, you can select:

• Entity: Selecting the entire Geometry Entity.
• Face: Selecting a surface on a Geometry Entity.
• Edge: Selecting a line on a Geometry Entity.
• Vertex: Selecting a point on the Geometry Entity.