44.5 Customizing a contour plot

This section describes how to customize a contour plot. Abaqus/CAE offers numerous options for you to control the contour type, limits, intervals, and colors. The following topics are covered:

“Choosing line-, banded-, quilt-, or isosurface-type contours,” Section 44.5.1
“Stylizing line-type contours,” Section 44.5.2
“Customizing banded- and isosurface-type contours,” Section 44.5.3
“Contouring line-shaped elements with tick mark contour plots,” Section 44.5.4
“Customizing tick mark contour plots,” Section 44.5.5
“Choosing the contour method,” Section 44.5.6
“Setting contour limits,” Section 44.5.7
“Annotating the minimum and maximum contour values,” Section 44.5.8
“Controlling how Abaqus/CAE computes contour limits,” Section 44.5.9
“Customizing contour colors,” Section 44.5.10
“Creating a new color spectrum,” Section 44.5.11
“Customizing contour intervals,” Section 44.5.12

To learn how to customize the render style, translucency, or model edge characteristics of your contour plot, see Chapter 55, “Customizing plot display.” For information on adding nodal-averaged orientations to your contour plot, see “Displaying nodal-averaged orientations,” Section 55.5.6. For information on customizing an envelope plot, see “Selecting section point data by category” in “Selecting section point data,” Section 42.5.9. For information on the computation of result values, see “Understanding how results are computed,” Section 42.6.1.