GiD forum

Hi!
I'm testing GiD to understand if by it; I have some question. For example, I have drawn a parallelepiped made of six surfaces but without define a volume because I want only a surfaces mesh.
I decided to create the mesh only on two identical and parallel surfaces using the no mesh command on the other.

- without do a comprehensive statistical, if I use the same parameter for the mesh on both surfaces, GiD will create exactly the same mesh, with the same number of elements and the same orientation?

- I have seen that is possible to execute GiD from outside and load a batch file with TCL commands: this is important for me because I need to parametrize the size of the mesh in order to generate one more fine according to the results obtained with another program; there exists a complete list of all possible TCL commands and parameters and also some examples (I've seen the GiD_12_Customization_Manual)?

Thanks and have a good work

Also with same meshing parameters in two 'similar' surfaces you are not guaranteed to obtain exactly the same mesh (number of triangles and node's location). It depends on a lot of factors: small differences between entities, order of creation (ids), etc.
About the orientation, the mesh elements will have the same orientation as its geometrical source entities. You can check (draw by colors or vectors) and modify (swap some, swap neighbors coherently,...) the orientation of curves and surfaces.

To force a one-to-one relationship between the elements of two surface you must do some tricks, like create a structured or semi-structured mesh, or create a 'separated contact volume' that is a pseudo-volume that links two 'similar surfaces' and force to mesh them with a 'similar mesh' (and could create extra volume elements linking opposited surface elements)

About batch files, they must containt the GiD keywords to do something (they are not Tcl commands).
To know the GiD keywords to do something you can do it manually and have a look to the last 'Utilities->Undo' window contents.
You can also set visible the 'Right buttons toolbar' (Utilities->Tools->Toolbars...) to know the keywords allowed in the current context