How to organize and reuse thermo-optical properties

This article explains how to organize, reuse, import, and export thermo-optical properties using the thermo-optical properties manager.

You can create reusable thermo-optical properties datasets that can be applied across multiple boundary conditions and models, or shared between analysts.

With the thermo-optical manager, you can:

  1. Import and export thermo-optical properties to share data between models and users (1).
  2. Create and maintain a reusable library of thermo-optical properties.
  3. Import properties from the default catalog file: [software_installation]\NXCAE_extras\tmg\if\catalogs\optical_prop.xml (2).
  4. Filter properties by the type (3) or name (4) to quickly find relevant entries.
  5. Resolve name conflicts (5).
  6. Inspect properties from external XML files before importing (6).

Both constant-value and table-based thermo-optical properties are supported.

Import thermo-optical properties

To reuse thermo-optical properties from another model or import them from a catalog, follow these steps.

Prerequisites: XML file containing thermo-optical properties in a compatible format.

  1. Choose Home > Properties > More > Manage Thermo-Optical Properties.

  2. (Optional) Inspect an external file:
    • In the Tools group (6), click Inspect external file containing Thermo-Optical Properties modeling objects.
    • Select the XML file and review its contents.
  3. In the Import from XML File group, click Browse and select a file containing thermo-optical properties or you can select Use Default XML file to import properties from the default catalog file.
  4. (Optional) You can limit the thermo-optical properties for import using filtering options (3), (4).
  5. Resolve naming conflicts if exist (5). A naming conflict arises when you import a property with the same name as an existing property in the model. To resolve this, you can:
    • Overwrite the thermo-optical values with the imported ones for modeling object with identical names.
    • Import the thermo-optical properties without overwriting the existing properties by renaming the imported ones.
  6. Click Import, then Close.

Export thermo-optical properties

To save and share thermo-optical properties for use in other models, export them to an XML file as described below.

Prerequisites: Thermo-optical properties defined in the FEM or Simulation file.

The properties available for export depend on the active file:

  • FEM file active — Only properties created in the FEM file are listed.
  • Simulation file active — Properties from both Simulation and FEM files are listed.

  1. Choose Home > Properties > More > Manage Thermo-Optical Properties.

  2. In the Export to XML File list, select properties to export (1).
  3. Click Export.
  4. In the Save As dialog box, specify the file name and location.
  5. Click Close.