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Discovery Live: “Thin” geometric features and relative GPU adjustments

    • FAQFAQ
      Participant

      I have seen a number of questions regarding simulating large models or issues with thin geometric features within a larger overall simulation and wanted to provide some helpful guidance and information.

      ANSYS Discovery Live applies a unique approach and leverages GPU computing to instantly simulate a wide range of geometry and physics. Today, however, Live cannot simulate every complex model or assembly you might like to throw at it; there is a fidelity limit on the amount of detail you can capture relative to the overall size of your simulation.

      Huh?

      Let’s take a look at an example. Let’s say you want to simulate a force pressing down on this stool:

      No problem! Fix a location, apply a force and get a result in a second or two. Notice how the results display (the blue and colored stool on the right) is smooth and continuous and well covers the entire stool geometry.

      Now let’s say I want to simulate this stool sitting on top of the Millennium Falcon (stool not to scale):

      What do my simulation results look like now?

      If you look closer at the stool in this larger simulation, you will notice that it is not fully captured by the fidelity of the simulation:

      Why does this happen? 

      Discovery Live simulates an entire problem all at once. This means, the larger geometrically the problem you simulate, the less small detail you can resolve. This is what you can see with the example above.

       

      Does Discovery Live let me turn up the fidelity?

      Yes! Above the Play button you will find a “Fidelity” slider that let’s you turn up the resolution:

      What happens if I do that with our model above?

      Now you can see that the stool has been better resolved.

       

      The effect of GPU size on fidelity

      It is important to note that because Discovery Live is designed to provide an interactive workflow for a wide range of supported graphics cards, it adjusts the available fidelity range (minimum and maximum) to keep a fine balance between performance and level of detail. This means that depending on the available graphics memory and computational resources, the limit on what Discovery Live is able to resolve geometrically changes.

       

      What can I do to capture more detail if I have already turned up the fidelity?

      • Get a larger graphics card (more memory and faster clock speed) – This will allow you to simulate larger problems with more detail.
      • Simulate a smaller problem – Can you split the model into smaller regions and apply appropriate boundary conditions to those smaller regions?