Read ANSYS mesh

Read ANSYS FE mesh data (geometry for plotting in Matlab)

This function reads the geometry data from an ANSYS finite element mesh and converts it to a set of vertices and faces, ready for plotting in Matlab. The mesh data file must be created using the included APDL macro.
The FE model is "hollowed out", i.e. all internal (non-visible) faces are removed in order to make plotting faster. The function calculates a number of useful things, such as mappings e.g. between node numbers and indices, node and face normals, model center of mass, etc. Two element types are currently supported: SOLID186 and SOLID187 (hexahedral and tetrahedral solid elements).

The function is quite slow for large models. Those with limited patience can convert the sub functions to mex-files or download the already-mex'ed files from www.fatiguetoolbox.org. Mathworks do not allow any mex files on FEX...

Two example FE files are included: model1.txt and model2.txt. To get a demonstration, just call it with no output arguments and supply either model file as input, e.g. >> read_ansys_mesh('model1.txt')