Pack Options
The general properties of the packed structure are entered under the Pack Options tab. These parameters are grouped into the panels Domain, Materials, Packing, and Analysis.
Packing Mode
From the Packing Mode pull-down menu, select to Create New Packing or to Re-Compact Existing Packing.
Domain
In the Domain panel, enter the values for NX, NY and NZ, indicating the number of voxels that the packed structure should have in the X, Y, and Z-direction, respectively.
Change NX, NY and NZ by direct insertion or by clicking the arrow buttons.
When Re-Compact Existing Packing is selected, only NX can be changed. The values for NY and NZ and the voxel length are then changed automatically to keep the actual domain size. Entering larger values for NX lead to a finer resolution.
Materials
Define the materials in the structure. This is part of the GeoDict Material Database concept, in which objects and pore space in the structure are ascribed to an individual material (e.g. glass, iron, PET, air, ..) with specific physical properties.
The panel does not appear when Re-Compact Existing Packing is selected. Then, the materials from the existing packing are kept.
Packing
Define the parameters for the packing algorithm.
For Re-Compact in Existing the parameter random seed is not available.
Analysis
Define which result files should be created and which post-processing should be applied.
Checking the boxes Save GeoDict Particle Trajectories for Animation of sphere motion (*gpt File) and Save Two-Point Correlation Information (*.tpc File), creates the respective files inside the results folder in the project folder.
Checking Save GeoDict Particle Trajectories for Animation of sphere motion (*.gpt File) creates a file containing the sphere trajectories during the packing process. The particle trajectory file can be loaded for visualization. Since saving the sphere trajectories results in a significant slowing down of the packing process, while the files are opened and trajectories for every sphere are saved, there is no need to select this option unless knowing the trajectories is essential for the project.
If Compute Object Contacts Information Based on Voxel Image is checked, GeoDict counts the number of sphere-to-sphere contacts by checking if a voxel belonging to one sphere is in direct contact with a voxel belonging to another sphere. This is reported as Voxel Contacts under the Results - Report subtab of the Result Viewer of the GDR result file, after the packing process has run.
