[Paraview] FW: (ParaView) Lofting Shells (INC000000978412)

[David Thompson]

> My user wants to know if ParaView can "loft" shells?  Any ideas?

Not as far as I know. One issue is that different FEM codes parameterize shell elements differently:

+ Some assume that the surface is a true mid-surface. Others allow different "top" and "bottom" heights. Others "loft" only in one direction.

+ Some treat neighboring shells as constraining the offset nodes for problems where contact may be an issue. Others do not do contact.

The latter in particular can lead to tricky problems when angles between neighboring shell elements are acute. Doing something akin to the "tube" filter, but for quads+tris would be easy as a Python programmable filter. Doing something where neighboring elements were taken into account would be significantly more work.

	David