Digitizing for Computer-Aided Finite Element Model Generation—Part 1: The General Program

Abstract

Computer-aided design is a complex process involving many disciplines. This two part paper describes an approach to computer-aided design which has evolved for the specific discipline of structural analysis. The vehicle for the implementation of the approach is a collection of programs called the GIFTS system. The first part of the paper describes the latest version of GIFTS. The second part of the paper will discuss a digitizing program aimed at facilitating the preparation of input defining complex two-dimensional models for the GIFTS mesh generator.