Free Morph

Use the Free tool to morph mesh by moving nodes, handles, or domains, by applying shapes, or by mapping to geometry.

From the Morph ribbon, click the Free tool.

Figure 1.
Optional: On the guide bar, click to define morphing options.
Select the nodes, faces, edges, shapes, domains, or handles to move.
By default, the Free tool automatically determines and selects anchor nodes and morph area elements based on the shape of the model connected to the moving nodes. Both are fully recalculated after each moving entity is either appended or deselected to allow for faster consecutive morphs with less manual selection, and more intuitive local morphing. This feature is enabled by default and can be turned off by deselecting the Automatic checkbox.
Morph the mesh in the following ways:
- When selecting nodes, faces, edges, handles, or domains: Move entities freely using the Move tool (see manipulator options below).
  - The position of the Move tool is set at the center of the selected entities. Selecting new entities updates the position of the Move tool. Double-click the Move tool to reposition it manually.
  - The position of the normal offset arrow is set at the center of the selected entities. Click anywhere on the selected entities to reposition the offset arrow to that location.
- When selecting shapes: Move entities freely along the selected shape using the shape magnitude arrow. The magnitude is in the form of a multiplying factor with respect to the selected shape.
  - The position of the shape magnitude arrow is set at the center of the selected shape. Click anywhere on the selected shape to reposition the offset arrow to that location
- Activate the Targets selector and select target geometry or mesh to map to, then use the microdialog to execute the morph and adjust available mapping options.
  Deselect targets to move nodes freely again.
Optional: Manually select anchor nodes and elements that make up the morph area by activating the corresponding selector on the guide bar then making your selection.
This is not available for handles or domains.

Manipulator Options

Use the following microdialog options to change the Move tool mode between translating & rotating (default), or offsetting normal to mesh.

- Switch to normal offset mode

Click this button to replace the standard Move tool with a single normal offset arrow. Drag or click on the arrow to type a normal offset value to move the mesh. This mode is not available for nodes connected to 3D elements.

The following additional options are available when using this mode:

Normal offset method

Use this option to change the offset direction calculation method for each moving node:

Averaged normals: Calculate the average normal direction of all connected elements, or all connected elements specified in the Normal Elements selector.
Smoothed normals: Calculate the average normal direction of all connected elements, or connected elements specified in the Normal Elements selector, and then smooth them so that transitions near corners are not abrupt.
CFD corners: Calculate the average normal direction of all connected elements, or connected elements specified in the Normal Elements selector, and then smooth them so that elements near corners are not folded. This method can be time consuming, so for meshes without many sharp corners the smoothed normals option will be more efficient while still producing good results.

Normal Elements

Click this button to review and edit the elements connected to the moving nodes that will be used for calculating the offset directions. By default, the minimum number of elements connected to all moving nodes is automatically determined but can be customized with this option to further restrict the normal offset operation.

When using a customized Normal Elements selection, only nodes still connected to any Normal Elements will move, and any nodes left without a connected Normal Element will not move.

If the Normal Elements selector is emptied completely, all elements connected to the moving nodes will be automatically used for the offset direction calculation.

- Switch to move mode

Click this button to replace the normal offset arrow with the Move tool. The Move tool includes all standard translating and rotating arrows.

Mapping Options

Use the following microdialog options when selecting target geometry with the Free tool.

- Use manipulator

Move entities interactively with the Move tool.

- Projection direction

Along vector: Project along a user-defined direction using the Vector tool. After a direction is defined, press Esc to close the tool.
Normal to target: Project normal to target.
Normal to source: Project normal to nodes' mesh.
Smoothed normals: Calculate the average normal direction for all elements and then smooth them so that transitions near corners are not abrupt.
CFD normals: Use a sophisticated algorithm to smooth the normals for all the elements such that the elements will not get folded when their nodes are morphed.; For cases where your mesh contains sharp corners, the CFD corners option will produce the smoothest projections. However, it can be time consuming, and for meshes without such sharp corners, the smoothed normals option will work quickly while giving good results.
Fit to line: Fit along line through target.

- Toggle extended surface edges

Extend the edges of the surfaces or mesh in a direction perpendicular to the normal at the closest point on the surfaces or mesh. If this option is selected, the moving nodes will be projected on to an extended representation of the surfaces or mesh, enabling you to project nodes beyond the edge of the surfaces or mesh as well as within any holes. If this option is not selected, the moving nodes will be projected on to the interior or edges of the surfaces or mesh, which may end up distorting the morphed mesh.

In Figure 2, three surfaces are floating above an angled mesh. All of the nodes of the mesh are selected as moving nodes and they are projected to the surfaces in the normal to geom direction. With extend surface edges selected, the moving nodes are moved either to the surfaces or to virtual surfaces which extend perpendicular to the normal direction at the edge of the surface. Note how the nodes end up placed inside the hole in the center of the largest surface. Without extend surface edges selected, the moving nodes are moved to the nearest point of the surfaces. Note how several layers of moving nodes end up compressed at the edge of the surfaces and around the edge of the hole.

Note: Available when elements or surfaces are the target entity.

- Offset

Offset distance

Apply an offset value to be maintained between the moving nodes and the selected targets. This value represents an absolute distance, regardless of the direction in which the nodes are moved.

A positive value for the offset will place the nodes short of the target, a negative value for the offset will place the nodes beyond the target, and an offset of zero will place the nodes on the target.

When mapping to target elements, the direction of the offset will be calculated using the element normals.

Average thickness plus offset

The offset value is automatically calculated based on the thickness values assigned to the moving and target mesh, as follows:

$\frac{t 1 + t 2}{2} + offset value$

Where,

t1 - Thickness of the elements connected to the moving nodes.

t2 - Thickness of the target elements. If the selected targets do not have a thickness, t2 is considered as zero.

Average thickness times offset

The offset value is automatically calculated based on the thickness values assigned to the moving and target mesh, as follows:

$\frac{t 1 + t 2}{2} * offset value$

Where,

t1 - Thickness of the elements connected to the moving nodes.

t2 - Thickness of the target elements. If the selected targets do not have a thickness, t2 is considered as zero.

- Offset in all directions

Measure the offset from each node to the closest point on the target, regardless of projection direction.

When turned off, the offset is measured along the direction of projection of each node.

- Autofix target normals

When mapping to target elements, this option will ensure all mapped nodes remain on the same side of the target mesh by automatically adjusting any flipped normals in the target mesh.

Morph Methods

Choose from the following morph methods when using the Free tool.

These options are accessed by clicking on the guide bar.

Free edges: Create a general domain for the affected elements for the purpose of applying the morphing. The movement of nodes along the boundaries of the affected elements is unregulated.
Domain edges: If you have already created domains via a panel or loaded a model with domains, those domains will be used to determine the way the morphing is applied to the model. Any morph area elements which aren't in existing domains are placed in a general domain. Thus, if you use this option with no domains in the model, it's the same as using free edges where a general domain is created for the entire morph area.
Inferred edges: Create local domains for the affected elements for the purpose of applying the morphing.; Create edge domains along the boundaries of the affected elements which will regulate morphing.
Morph all nodes: Using a proximity based algorithm, potentially morph every node in the model relative to the distances between the nearest moving node and the nearest anchor node.
Partitioned edges: Partition all of the affected elements before applying morphing.
Krig all nodes: Using the kriging algorithm, potentially morph every node in the model except for the anchor nodes.
Note: A practical upper limit on the number of moving nodes you can have is 3000. Computers with above average memory and CPU available may be able to support larger number of moving nodes comfortably.
Morph within envelope: Using a proximity based algorithm, potentially morph every node in the model relative to the distances between the nearest moving node and to either the edge of the envelope or the nearest anchor node (if selected). The envelope can either be defined as a discrete distance using the Distance option, or as a multiple of the magnitude of the perturbation applied to the nearest moving node using the Perturbation multiple option. If the Distance option is selected, this method will act identically to Morph all nodes.

For options Morph all nodes, Krig all nodes, and Morph within envelope, the influence of the moving nodes extends beyond the mesh to which they are attached, thus you will need to anchor or exclude any nodes that you do not want to have morphed. If you wish to exclude the nodes which are not displayed, set the Undisplayed nodes option to Exclude. Excluded nodes will neither be morphed nor will they affect the morphing. If you wish the nodes which are not displayed to act like anchor nodes, set the Undisplayed nodes option to Anchor. Anchor nodes will influence the morphing by reducing the amount of morphing of any nearby nodes. If the option is set to Morph, HyperMesh will morph any undisplayed nodes which are not anchored.

Figure 3 shows how the different methods affect the mesh morphing. For the partitioned option, the inner edge closest to the moved nodes is unaffected since an edge domain is internally created for it. For the inferred edges option, no inner edges were created and thus the inner edge ends up curved as its nodes follow the moving nodes. For the free edges option, no outer edges were created either and thus the outer edges end up curved as well as the inner ones. For the morph all nodes and krig all nodes options, note the differences in the methods, especially the smoothness of the kriging algorithm. For the morph within envelope option, note how the mesh inside the envelope is linearly perturbed relative to the distance from the moving node and that no fixed nodes are required.