sees
Highly efficient and portable finite element visualization framework
sees
is a finite element rendering library that leverages modern
web technologies to produce sharable, efficient, and detailed renderings.
sees
is a finite element rendering library that leverages modern
web technologies to produce sharable, efficient, and detailed renderings.
Unlike most tools that only provide temporary visualization, sees
generates
persistent 3D models that can be stored in files, shared with colleagues, and
viewed with any standard 3D model viewer. This means anyone can interact with
the renderings without needing to install specialized software or even Python.
Simply open the 3D object with your computer’s 3D viewer (e.g., 3D Viewer on
Windows) or load it into a free online viewer in like gltf-viewer.
Documentation is currently under development.
Features
- Detailed Render frames with extruded cross sections
- Persistence: Save your finite element visualizations as persistent 3D models that can be revisited and analyzed at any time.
- Portability: Share your models effortlessly with colleagues, enabling seamless collaboration and review.
- Accessibility: View and interact with the models using any standard 3D model viewer, eliminating the need for specialized software or Python installation.
- Versatility: A wide selection of rendering backends and output file types, including
optimized 3D web formats like
.glb
. Generated 3D models can be loaded directly into programs like PowerPoint and animated. - Correctly render models that treat both
y
or z
as the
vertical coordinate.
Gallery
Getting Started
To install sees
run:
pip install sees
Command Line Interface
To create a rendering, execute the following command from the anaconda prompt (after activating the appropriate environment):
python -m sees model.json -o model.html
where model.json
is a JSON file generated from executing the following OpenSees command:
print -JSON model.json
If you omit the -o <file.html>
portion, it will plot immediately in a new
window. You can also use a .png
extension to save a static image file, as
opposed to the interactive html.
Note Printing depends on the JSON output of a model. Several materials and
elements in the OpenSeesPy and upstream OpenSees implementations do not
correctly print to JSON. For the most reliable results, use the
opensees
package.
By default, the rendering treats the $y$ coordinate as vertical.
In order to manually control this behavior, pass the option
--vert 3
to render model $z$ vertically, or --vert 2
to render model $y$ vertically.
If the opensees
package is installed,
you can directly render a Tcl script without first printing to JSON,
by just passing a Tcl script instead of the JSON file:
python -m sees model.tcl -o model.html
To plot an elevation (elev
) plan (plan
) or section (sect
) view, run:
python -m sees model.json --view elev
and add -o <file.extension>
as appropriate.
To see the help page run
python -m sees --help
Related Links
See also
The sees
packages was used to generate figures for the following publications:
Support