Customizing vector and tensor labels

You can display a label next to each vector or tensor arrow in a symbol plot that expresses its value in numerical form. You can also customize these labels by changing their color, font, type size, number format, and number of decimal places.

Related Topics
Understanding symbol plotting

  1. Locate the Labels options.

    Select OptionsSymbol from the main menu bar or click in the toolbox; then click the Labels tab in the dialog box that appears. Click either the Vector tab or the Tensor tab; the symbol plot Labels options for the variable type of your choice become available.

  2. Toggle on Display value next to vector symbol to show vector labels for the selected type of vector.

  3. Select the color of the vector labels for the selected type of vector.

    1. Click the Text color color sample .

      Abaqus/CAE displays the Select Color dialog box.

    2. Use one of the methods in the Select Color dialog box to select a new color. For more information, see Customizing colors.
    3. Click OK to close the Select Color dialog box.

  4. Select the font of the vector labels for the selected type of vector.

    1. Click Set Font.

      Abaqus/CAE displays the Select Font dialog box.

    2. Use one of the methods in the Select Font dialog box to select a new font, size, and style. For more information, see Customizing fonts.
    3. Click OK to close the Select Font dialog box.

  5. To change the format of the vector labels for the selected vector type, click the Number Format arrow and select one of the following formats:

    • Select Scientific to display legend values in scientific notation, which expresses legend values as a decimal value between 1 and 10 multiplied by a power of 10. When you select this format for the number 501,000, the value appears in the legend as 5.01e5.

    • Select Fixed to display legend values without using exponent values. When you select this format, the number 501,000 is displayed in the legend as 501000.00.

    • Select Engineering to select engineering notation, which expresses values in a similar format to scientific notation but allows exponent values that are multiples of three only. When you select this format, the number 501,000 is displayed in the legend as 501E3.

  6. Click the Decimal places arrows to specify the desired number of decimal places in each label.

  7. Click Apply to implement your changes.

    The symbol plot in the current viewport changes to display labels with your selected formatting.

    By default, your changes to symbol plot options are saved for the duration of the session and will affect all subsequent symbol plots in the current viewport and in any new viewports created from the current viewport. If you want to retain your changes for subsequent sessions, save them to a file. For more information, see Saving customizations for use in subsequent sessions.