Pointwise - Recent Threads

RE: Question About Reading Mesh Files in Pointwise v18.4

Claudio M Pita — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:06:23 GMT

Hi Akshay,

Thank you very much for the update on this matter. I am glad to hear that you were able to open the grid as desired.

Have a great weekend!

Best regards,

Claudio M. Pita

Question About Reading Mesh Files in Pointwise v18.4

AN202505136027 — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 23:14:01 GMT

Hi All,

I would like to check whether there is backward compatibility, or any available workaround, for reading a mesh created in Fidelity Pointwise 2023.2.1 in Pointwise v18.4.

Kind regards,

Akshay

RE: Question About Reading Mesh Files in Pointwise v18.4

AN202505136027 — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 23:48:48 GMT

Hey Claudio,

Thanks, I was successfully able to read the mesh created in Fidelity Pointwise 2023.2.1 in Pointwise V18.4. Thanks for the quick reply.

Regards,

Akshay

RE: Question About Reading Mesh Files in Pointwise v18.4

Claudio M Pita — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 13:33:36 GMT

Hi Akshay,

Thank you very much for your question.

A potential workaround would be to export the database entities and the grid entities separately in Fidelity Pointwise V2023.2.1 and then import those files separately in Pointwise V18.

I would recommend to export the database entities in IGES format and the grid entities in CGNS format. Furthermore, when exporting the grid via File, Export, CAE, make sure you set the current CAE solver to CGNS, and set the CGNS export version 3.3.1 via CAE, Set Solver Attributes (latest CGNS format version won't be readable in V18.4).

Last but not least, you may want to make sure all the domains in your grid are assigned to CAE boundary conditions to ensure that the domains in Pointwise V18 look the same as the domains in Fidelity Pointwise 2023.2.1.

If you have any other questions, please submit a support ticket at your earliest convenience (www.support.cadence.com).

Best regards,

Claudio M. Pita

RE: Pointwise Grid Solve Feature

Claudio M Pita — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 12:39:56 GMT

Hi,

You are very welcome.

Thank you very much for the update. I am glad you were able to resolve the issue.

Best regards,

Claudio M. Pita

Pointwise Grid Solve Feature

AN202505136027 — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 04:05:20 GMT

Hi everyone,

I'm using the Grid Solve feature to smooth the mesh in critical areas. One issue I'm facing is matching the spacing between two adjacent blocks, especially when the spacing varies along the block. Is there an option in Grid Solve to adapt to this changing spacing so that both blocks have matching grid distribution?

Thanks

RE: Pointwise Grid Solve Feature

AN202505136027 — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 01:20:05 GMT

Hi Claudio,

Thanks for sharing the tutorial video, I was able to resolve it.

RE: Pointwise Grid Solve Feature

Claudio M Pita — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 13:11:19 GMT

Hi,

Thank you very much for your question.

In order to better assist you with your question, I will need a bit more information if possible:

Are you working with structured or unstructured blocks?
If using unstructured blocks, one option you may want to try out is the Adjacent Grid face attribute:
- Video: https://youtu.be/Ea_a1Gh-uRw?si=8s3HBZKbTjebO2h0
- User Manual (requires access to ASK): https://www.cadence.com/doc/user-manual/grid/solve/structured-domains-and-blocks/edge-attributes-tab/spacing-controls.html
A very important think to make sure that you have a consistent spacing distribution across blocks is to ensure that the adjacent bounding domains of both blocks (and their respective connectors) have consistent spacings.

For better assistance, I would recommend the following if possible:

Open a new support ticket in Cadence's ASK platform: https://youtu.be/CgMIJrr3vF0?si=n7p5Srn3qAc8Fd_a
Upload a sample case for further investigation.

Looking forward to your additional comments.

Best regards,

Claudio M. Pita

RE: Axis to axis transformation in Pointwise

Claudio M Pita — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 13:06:02 GMT

Hi M,

Thank you very much for your question. Please accept my apologies for the delay getting back to you on this matter.

I believe you have logged a support ticket in the Cadence Online Support platform with this question. If you don't mind, we'll respond via the platform.

Best regards,

Claudio M. Pita

Axis to axis transformation in Pointwise

MB202504181844 — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 19:34:37 GMT

Hello,

I have a high-lift design and have meshed a flap setting. I want to use the same flap mesh to create another flap setting.

As the motion from one flap setting to another is quite complex, it is not that straightforward to do a rotation and a translation. Would it be possible to define an axis system to the flap (i.e. source axis) and define a target axis system (i.e. destinations axis) and do an axis-to axis transformation of the flap mesh? This would be very useful.

Thanks

Activation codes for Pointwise perpetual license

tnapoles — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 14:46:04 GMT

Hi, We have a perpetual Pointwise license that we need activation codes for. The license was bought before Cadence took over Pointwise so we don't have access to support for Pointwise anymore, can someone let me know whi I should contact?

Thanks,

Thomas Napoles

Duke University

RE: Activation codes for Pointwise perpetual license

Gaurav — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 08:52:48 GMT

Hi, please log in using the following link. Depending on your location, select a specific email address or use "ASK Cadence" via support.cadence.com. You can submit your query, and the sales team will assist you.

https://www.cadence.com/en_US/home/support/customer-support-contacts.html

RE: Create a Block between inflation layers

Claudio M Pita — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 14:40:01 GMT

Hi,

Thank you very much for the update on this case.

Here my comments:

The important thing is to ensure that the entire geometry is assembled into a single watertight database model (i.e., no gaps). Once this is done, you will need to assemble the quilts as needed to define the needed meshing regions. Note that the vein needs to be assembled into two separate quilts to nicely define the leading edge where a connector will be created. In order to better understand the Fidelity Pointwise meshing process, I would recommend reviewing he following videos:
- Basic Concepts: https://youtu.be/7ynTrsuG80I?si=cwYjHwZ7-R-SGu7Z
- Automatic Surface Mesh: https://youtu.be/VmAYwRbChMk?si=0tPWKHdTjiLANjJf
- Automatic Volume Mesh: https://youtu.be/EU1Cb2KeK-U?si=EjlmSo6aslowAJ6C
If the leading edge is not meshed correctly, is likely due to the fact that the entire vein is assembled into a single quilt; as indicated, you will need two quilts: one on the pressure side and one on the suction side. Please take a look at the videos above for a nice example.
If the surface grid is quad dominant (i.e., triangles and quads), T-Rex will create as many hexahedral cells as possible. In addition, you can use the Voxel algorithm to place cartesian cells in the isotropic section of the volume grid (seen in the third video above).

I have uploaded a new file called Linear_Periodic_Case_Con_PWI.pw with the final mesh I obtained using the connectors that you have manually created (note that no quilting was done!). You can see the hexahedral cells in the boundary layer. In this case, I used the Delaunay algorithm to populate the isotropic regions but, as indicated, you can change this to the Voxel algorithm if needed.

As indicated, the manual procedure you are following is not invalid; you will likely get to a valid good mesh. However, it is a more time consuming way of getting to the final result. What I am trying to show you is a faster way to obtain the mesh you are looking for.

Note: I will be on work travel this week; my responses may be delayed.

I hope you find this information useful.

Best regards,

Create a Block between inflation layers

MS20240828216 — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 09:07:13 GMT

Hello everyone,
My problem is creating a block between the inflation layers. The reason for the failing of the block creation are the domains on the outer surface of the vane-block, which were created during the extrusion of the vane in rectangular z-direction. The problem here is that these domains of the vane are too long and go directly into the wall layers (problematic domains marked in white). That's why it's not possible to create the block in the empty space between the inflation layers of the walls and the vane.

My question: is it possible to shorten the domains that they fit in the space between the two wall layers and they keep the same height so that there is no gap between the block I want to create and the vane block.
I’ve already tried to create the domains manually by creating connectors with the length of the distance between the two wall layers. This allowed me to create a block, but there was a gap between the created block and the block of the vane. The reason for the gap is that the manually created domain was not exactly on the outer surface of the vane-block.

I hope you could follow my explanations
Thanks for your help

RE: Create a Block between inflation layers

MS20240828216 — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 12:31:33 GMT

Hello Claudio,
Sorry for the late reply.

I uplouded the original file.
My mesh creation process:
-     Importing the CAD model and assemble the two vane quilts into a single quilt
-    Create connectors on database entities
-    Add a 2-point connector at the top and bottom of the vane
-    Manually create the vane domains
-    Extrude normal to the vane domains
-    Assemble special domains for the for the walls (shroud and hub)
-    Extrude the wall domains normal
-    Manually create the domains for the rest of the surfaces
-    Create a block for the inlet- and the outlet-section

I tried your advice with the automatic surface mesh but the leading edge has big holes

I also tried to create the mesh with T-Rex but I cannot find a way to create the mesh with mainly hexahedra cells. Is there a way to create the mesh with T-Rex and with hexahedra inside?

Thank you very much for your help

RE: Termination of T-rex layers against adjacent domain

Claudio M Pita — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 16:20:19 GMT

Hi,

Thank you very much for the update.

Here my comments:

Unfortunately, this particular issue seems to be related to the geometry to some extent considering that, even though we were able to reproduce the issue, in our sample case the recommended block split approach resolved the problem and provided a satisfactory grid.
That being said, if you have a few cells that need additional improvement, I would recommend:
- Use the WCN smoother on the correct block to try to improve those cells: https://youtu.be/NsTsY2WnNzg?si=9AlACdmyHqSkvbSV
- Another option would be to increase the split distance to see if the overall cell quality does improve.
Last but not last, in order to keep you up-to-date with the progress of PW-25587, we would need a support ticket in COS with your contact information so our systems can send an email when the issue is resolved. If this isn't possible, I would recommend to check the Release Notes available with each release to see if the issue in question has been resolved.

Thank you very much for your time and help!

Best regards,

Termination of T-rex layers against adjacent domain

JH202408202239 — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 14:52:41 GMT

Hello everyone,

I am making a mesh for an internal flow around a cone. I use the T-rex algorithm to create inflation layers. See the left image below. On the left hand side you can see one of the domains that form the boundaries of the block, which has the boundary type 'match'. In order to mesh the adjacent block nicely, I had to set the number of T-rex layers lower than in this block. As a result, the T-rex algorithm needs to add in 5 additional layers coming off of the 'match' domain (or terminate layers coming towards the 'match' domain depending on your reference). However, the way in which it does this, creates highly skewed cells (view the image on left below). The top layers are curved upwards creating a much taller cell in the middle of the inflation layer. The behaviour I would expect is in the image on the right, where the additional layers are neatly stacked on the others. This still creates skewed cells, but less so.

Can you explain why this behaviour occurs and how I might obtain something that resembles the right picture? Thank you very much!

RE: Termination of T-rex layers against adjacent domain

JH202408202239 — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 14:50:50 GMT

Hi Claudio,

I tried your suggestion, and increased the distance of the split so that it is one cell above the end of the T-rex layers all around the cone. You can see the result in the image below. This method improves the result: there are now only 47 cells with a skewness above 0.9. But there are still cells created in a manner that I think can be improved to reduce the maximum skewness (the maximum now was 0.96).

As for the ticket: I am not able to create a ticket via our COS account, but our license partner at Tecplot can. The geometry is confidential, so I would not be able to send this. Nevertheless, I think this problem is not heavily dependent on the geometry (seeing that you managed to reproduce it). I would like to keep up to date with any progress regarding the software performance report PW-25587. If you think you can assist me in another way via the ticket, that would be great of course.

RE: Create a Block between inflation layers

Claudio M Pita — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 14:55:28 GMT

Hi,

Thank you very much for your reply with the information.

If your entire Fidelity Pointwise project can be shared in a public forum like this one, please use the FTP account below to upload the entire Fidelity Pointwise file. In addition, please indicate the name of the problematic domain and/or use a distinctive color on it.

Could you please describe the process you are using the create this mesh?

Based on your comments and what I see in the provided file, it seems as if the connectors and domains are created manually. Is this the case? Although this process is valid, I am wondering, is there any particular reason why you have decided not to use the Automatic Surface Mesh functionality to create the surface grids automatically?
Along the same lines, it seems as if the boundary layers are being created via regular Normal extrusions. Is this the case? Even though this is a valid approach, is there any reason why you decided not to use the T-Rex algorithm?
Using the connectors you have created, I was able to assemble a single block (i.e., volume grid) and finish the grid using T-Rex in just a few minutes. If you are OK with it, I can upload the grid in the FTP account shown below. Please remember that this is a public forum.

FTP Server : ftp.cadence.com
FTP Account : xcftp1180
FTP Password : X56cmRqW
Customer : MS20240828216
FTP Account Expiry Date : 09/03/2024

Looking forward to your additional comments.

Best regards,

RE: Termination of T-rex layers against adjacent domain

Claudio M Pita — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 13:48:15 GMT

Hi,

Thank you very much for giving these options a try and reporting back.

If you would like to try a slight variation of Option 3, perhaps you could use the split by distance option to split the block (and the interface domain) a bit above the last T-Rex layer seen in the green domain to see if this provides better results.

If the above doesn't work, we would need to turn this into a regular support ticket so you can please share the Fidelity Pointwise file and we can investigate better options to work around the problem and ultimately to resolve it.

A few things to note:

Unfortunately, I cannot create a support ticket in your behalf because I don't have any of your information. I am not sure if you are part of an organization or a university. If the former, you should be able to create an account in COS and log a support ticket. If the latter, you will likely need to work through your advisor to log a ticket (unless your are added as a university user who can log support ticket by your advisor).
Here are a couple of videos showing the process to create a COS account and log a ticket:
- Create COS account: https://registration.cadence.com/resource/COSHelpPages/Help/cos-video.html
- Log support ticket: https://youtu.be/CgMIJrr3vF0?si=1tTA8iTLodOmAzOD
We were able to reproduce the problem in-house with a made up case and a Software Performance Report has been created to further investigate the issue: PW-25587.

I hope this information is useful. Please let me know how it goes.

Best regards,

RE: Create a Block between inflation layers

MS20240828216 — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 10:50:22 GMT

Hi,
Thanks for your reply.
The model is divided into 3 sections (inlet, outlet and vane). The aim is to have inflation layers around the vane and inflation layers from the shroud and the hub (wall layers) that extrude into the body. The empty spaces should then be filled with blocks and initialized. Furthermore, the case should be solved with mainly quad cells.

I can only upload a file containing the database and the connectors. The original file is too large to be uploaded here.

community.cadence.com/.../Linear_5F00_Periodic_5F00_Case_5F00_Con.zip

RE: Termination of T-rex layers against adjacent domain

JH202408202239 — Thu, 29 Aug 2024 09:07:05 GMT

Hi Caudio,

Thank you for your elaborate answer and continued help. It would be great if we can turn this into a regular support ticket.

In the meantime I tried your options, to no avail:

Options 1) and 2) create highly skewed cells in certain areas through the automatic processes which is very finicky to get rid with a lot of trial and error. Option 3) gives the result as shown in the image below. As you can see I split the block (and thus the domain) at the end of y the T-rex layers of the left block. The green domain is set to 'Match' and the yellow domain is turned off. Now, however, the T-rex algorithm stops itself 1 layer shy of the top of the green domain for some reason, which again creates highly skewed cells as it tries to fill the volume in that missing cell (you can see where the T-rex stops where the blue-coloured prisms turn into the red-coloured tetras). This method seems to have the potential to fix the issue, if the T-rex layer is able to continue all the way up to the top of the green domain.

RE: Influence of Sources on "Match" Symmetry Planes

Claudio M Pita — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 22:06:51 GMT

Hi,

You are very welcome.

Glad you found the information useful.

Best regards,

Influence of Sources on "Match" Symmetry Planes

TW202408282947 — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 21:21:44 GMT

I have run into an issue in multiple scenarios where, when initializing an unstructured block, "match" domains do not respect sources. The most common scenario is when I am modeling only half the domain (assuming a symmetric solution), and my sources (for instance, where I want high resolution in regions of interest) cross through the symmetry plane, and that symmetry plane intersects walls. So when I initialize the block, I have a "match" domain (symmetry plane) that must match the boundary layer growth AND respect sources in the isotropic tet region. When I build the symmetry plane domain, before initializing the block, it is refined by the source, but as soon as I initialize the block, that refinement goes away. Our current "fix" is to "Initialize Boundary Only" so that the symmetry plane gets the correct trex settings at the wall (this will also get rid of the refinement from the source), and then re-"initialize domain" for only the symmetry plane to get the source refinement back, and then initialize the block with "Push Attributes" turned OFF. This is cumbersome, and it is rather unintuitive when trying to explain to someone else how to modify and regenerate one of my meshes.

My understanding is that when "Push Attributes" is ON, it will automatically re-initialize any boundary set to "match", but for some reason, that domain initialization (which the user cannot control) does not have sources turned on. I haven't found a way in any settings to change this behavior, and I don't know why it is default.

I would think that this kind of workflow is fairly standard, so I would appreciate any help navigating the issue how Pointwise intends it. Or if this is just a bug or a inaccessible default setting that should be changed, this would make a great feature request! Thanks!

RE: Influence of Sources on "Match" Symmetry Planes

TW202408282947 — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 22:05:04 GMT

This is great! Thank you Claudio!