This section describes how you can customize the content and appearance of free body cuts using settings in the Free Body Plot Options dialog box. You can open the Free Body Plot Options dialog box by selecting OptionsFree Body from the main menu bar of the Visualization module of Abaqus/CAE.

The changes you make in the Free Body Plot Options dialog box apply to all active free body cuts, including those displayed on view cuts, in the current viewport only. Each viewport has separate free body plot options, which provides greater flexibility in displaying free body cuts. For example, you can display only the resultant force vectors for a model's free body cuts in one viewport and display only the resultant moment vectors for the same model and free body cuts in a different viewport.

You can also control the default settings that appear in the Free Body Plot Options dialog box by editing the Abaqus environment file (abaqus_v6.env). For more information, see “Using the Abaqus environment settings,” Section 3.3.1 of the Abaqus Analysis User's Guide.

The following topics are covered:

• “Customizing general display options for free body cuts,” Section 67.5.1

• “Customizing colors for vector components,” Section 67.5.2

• “Displaying or hiding individual component vectors,” Section 67.5.3

• “Scaling vector length for free body cuts,” Section 67.5.4

• “Customizing the display of labels in a free body cut,” Section 67.5.5