In CFD-GEOM V2007, certain entities can now be set to transparent.  This option allows you to add transparency effects to your surfaces, faces, and volumes.  This can be an excellent way to add colors and glass effects to the model.  Using transparency allows you to see inside the model without blanking out surfaces and/or faces, which can be helpful when dealing with large 3D models.

1. Select a surface or face in your model that you would like to make transparent, as shown in Figure 1.



Figure 1.  Surface selected to modify the transparency. 


Click the Colors button, as shown in Figure 2, to launch the Colors Dialog.





Figure 2.  Colors button in the Tool bar. 


2. On the Colors Dialog, select the second tab as shown in Figure 3.  On this tab, you can modify the Red, Green, and Blue settings for the surface.  The last option is Alpha, which modifies the transparency of the selected surface or face.





Figure 3.  Colors dialog with Alpha (transparency) highlighted. 


3. Set the desired value for Alpha, then click Accept to apply the new settings.

Figure 4.  Transparent face in CFD-GEOM.

The transparent surface is shown in Figure 4.  Using transparent surfaces can help with complicated models where you need to see the inside of the model, e.g. updating the grid distribution on the outer section and looking at the effects on the inner section. 

Note:  You can also set the transparency on volumes.  When sweeping the mesh through the volume using the Volume Grid viewer, the shaded surfaces of the mesh will be transparent (if grid shading is active.)

The next time you use CFD-GEOM, consider using the transparency option for faces and surfaces to make your grid generation easier.

Regards,
GT Shivakumar
Applications Engineer - ESI India