Release notes for SDT and FEMLink 7.1

Contents Functions

1.7 Release notes for SDT and FEMLink 7.1

1.7.1 Key features

SDT 7.1 is the only version fully compatible with MATLAB 9.4 (2018b) to 9.6 (2019a) mostly due to changes in the representation of complex numbers in MATLAB. Key changes of this release are

A continued effort in making the experimental modal analysis part of SDT section 2.2 fully accessible without any script is nearly complete. Functions however obviously remain accessible from the command line to users will to learn how to use them. The associated docks Id (for experimental modal analysis see section 2.2), CoTopo (topology correlation see section 3.1) and CoShape (test/FEM correlation see section 3.2) have been extended and tutorials have been introduced.
A major effort was put on the documentation. The new structuration of demos into tutorials helps training. You can for example see tutorials in various files with d_mesh('tuto'), gartid('tuto'), d_cor('tuto'), d_cms('tuto'), .... Equations are now shown as SVG files which improves readabily, but may pose problems on some older versions of MATLAB where the help browser does not support SVG.
We are still working with the MathWorks on improving reliability of the help browser. To bypass some bugs, you may have to change default location where the help is shown using sdtdef('browser-SetPref','-helpbrowser') or sdtdef('browser-SetPref','-webbrowser'). For clickable areas of SVG figures, use Ctrl-Click to open in a new window or right-click and select Open in a new tab.

Outside improved robustness of the femlink GUI, key changes for FEMLink are

ans2sdt extended BDF reading in particular for orthotropic materials and substructure export (to ease superelement import). Job submission integration is now supported as a consulting project feature.
nasread compatibility with NX Nastran BGSET and BSURFS cards. Documentation of superelement (see d_cms('TutoNasCb')). Performance of MAT9 and set reading.
abaqus significant .inp reading improvements *distribution,*hyperelastic, set handling, ... Performance of large .fil reading. Robustness and performance enhancements of resolve commands. Introduction of a .dat reading framework for customer use, with complex modes output reading support.

For MATLAB compatibility see section 1.7.3.

1.7.2 Detail by function

comgui	improved robustness and performance of Java interfaces, dock handling, menu_generation mechanism associated with OsDic.
demosdt	Tutorials underwent a major rewrite. d_cms now documents direct NASTRAN superelement import.
fe2ss	extended and improved documentation of damping handling strategies.
fecom	robustness of Show commands. In particular, ShowFi... now allows custom inits and is automatically added to the context menu.
fesuper	improvement of SE definition strategies with SEAdd, improved support of p_super definitions with SEinitCoef, and assembly calls with MatTyp -1 and -2. New command SeDofShow to display selected superelement active DOF on a full FE model in feplot.
feutil	Notable performance and generality improvements in the handling of sets. Support of pyra elements.
	Support of regular expression on sename searches selet eltname SE:#se[0-9]*, introduction of exclusion type in node and element selection operations. New operator &~ to subtract a selection from a current result. Introduction of element set exclusion using :exclude token following setname. Introduction of element selection type safesetname that returns empty elements instead of an exception. Support of setnames in double quotes for robust handling of setnames with special characters and spaces.
fe_caseg	Introduction of high level parametrization procedures for isotropic materials, any structural element and superelement, with command series Par*
fe_cyclic	improved support for multi-dimensional periodicity. This can be used with the support/fe_homo.m file which SDTools provides for free but with no support guarantee.
fe_eig	continued performance enhancements associated with memory management techniques, introduction of an Out-Of-Core modal basis storage support for method 5 (Lanczos).
fe_exp	MDRE expansion has been significantly enhanced and an initial version of an expansion tab is now provided.
fe_gmsh	introduced support for the new GMSH 4.0 format.
fe_mat	Improved robustness of unit conversion commands.
fe_mpc	Extended Rbe3 and CleanUsed commands.
fe_norm	major performance improvement of MSeq procedure. Introduction of an option to force vector collinearity tolerance estimation in the normalization procedure.

fe_range	Introduction of a Genetic algorithm framework with command GeneLoop. Introduction of an output data handling command Res that allows extracting and/or reformatting output data. Improvement of data sampler object getXFslice and introduction of an interpolation mode for coarse gridded data.
fe_reduc	continued performance enhancements associated with memory management techniques.
fe_shapeoptim	partially supported function for mesh morphing field projection is now included in the distribution.
fe_stress	Extended CritFcn calls, support of piezoelectric volumes, and export of weighted volumes associated with Gauss points in the .wjdet field.
mex	all SDT mex files now properly support the new complex number storage of MATLAB.
idcom	major improvement of band selection and pole extraction in stabilization diagrams. Improved dock functionality, performance and robustness. Menus for data manipulation (permute IO, SvdCur, ...) are introduced. Keyboard interaction has been improved.
	performance and robustness of the Channel tab has been improved.
id_rc	improvements of signal utilities dbsdt, filter, rms, a weights
iicom	improved file and dock reloading. Improved robustness of linked plots (magnitude/phase), keyboard interactions, java interaction.
ii_mac	the dockCoShape was notably extended and documented.
m_piezo	see sdtweb('pz_new') for specific release notes.
moldflow	This FEMLink function provides partial support of import of models exported by MoldFlow in Nastran, Universal and ANSYS formats.
polytec	improved translation of metadata associated with measurements.
p_shell	Merge commands have been extended for piezo applications.
p_solid	Support for element by element changes of properties has been notable extended.
pyra5	a new 5 node pyramid element is supported to ease mesh refining strategies in particular with level set strategies in lsutil.
sdtcheck	Utilities for sdtrootdir, rlmstat, rlm, patchfile were extended and robustified for use in patching and demos.
sdtroot	Subcommand @sfield for advanced struct manipulations is now supported.
sdtdef	clear definition of preferences with session scope (by default) or permanent scope (-setpref). Revision to alleviate preference file corruption with simultaneous statups. New commands envSet, envWrite to allow preferences load/ in .env files independently from the MATLAB session, compatible with deployed applications.

sdtacx	now supports section insertion in Word for easier report generation.
sdtweb	_tuto command provides generic support of tutorials the new base format for SDT demos.
comstr	robustness enhancements. -39 exports matlab variables to Python script. Support of nested string parsing with ”"” tokens in -25 calls.
mkl_utils	this mex file used to optimize time integration processes is now included in the base SDT.
ofact	sdtcheck(''patchMkl''' can be used to install the Pardiso solver which now supports complex matrices and can be notably faster for solutions with few right hand side solves. umfpack method is now properly supported for recent MATLAB.

1.7.3 Notes by MATLAB release

MATLAB 8.0 (2012b) to 9.6 (2019a). SDT & FEMLink 7.0 are developed for these versions of MATLAB and are fully compatible with them.
For best performance, using MATLAB 9.0 (2016a) and higher is advised.
For efficient FEM rendering, it is strongly advised to use HG2 : Matlab 8.4, R2014b and later.
MATLAB 7.14 (2012a) to 8.3 (2014a) SDT & FEMLink 7.0 are being phased out but can be used for a number of operations. Equations are not being shown correctly in the HTML documentation.
Earlier MATLAB releases are no longer supported.
MATLAB 8.5 has known bugs in the handling of colorbar.