This page documents the new features and work in progress for the M3d Finite Element Modeller
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ReleaseDateNotes
  1. 2.52 13/06/11 Pressure loads added for tri and quad Finite Elements. Work in progress to add local coordinate system for defining loads and restraints.
  2. 2.53 15/06/11 Local displacement coordinate systems added. Work in progress to add thermal strains
  3. 2.54 16/06/11 Results can now be output in text file format (comma delimited).
  4. 2.55 08/07/11 Node/Element modify labels added and some minor improvements to the IGES import.
  5. 2.56 23/12/11 Graphic enhancements for white background
  6. 2.57 04/03/13 IGES improvements
  7. 2.58 14/01/14 Groups import from text file and Nastran export revised
  8. 2.59 06/06/14 Ideas universal file import fixed (nodes & elements). Tri-element bending formulation bug fixed. New material direction display.
  9. 3.0018/10/14 Major new release.
  10. 3.30 28/09/16 Moving forward!
  11. 3.31 21/10/16 Changed and many improvements to drafting with more to come
  12. 4.00 Beta releases - changes not specified.
  13. 4.10 25/09/19 Animation added, General beam element added. Nodal results list added.
  14. 4.20 02/10/19 Bug fix for 4.1 release - Problems with the op2 reader and Tet mesher in 4.1 fixed (apologies).
  15. 4.30 19/10/19 New FE entity editor, material editor and property edit from a data table dialog added.
  16. 4.30 03/11/19 Bug fix to shell element formulation.
  17. 4.31 06/11/19 Results vectors added to post-processing. Note this is the first pass at adding them so treat with caution.
  18. 4.32 10/11/2019 New post-processing Icons added to toolbar
  19. 4.33 09/12/2019 New 2d surface meshing added - currently limited to M3d 2d surface by boundaries. also "Show" and "Hide" objects added. 
  20. 4.34 12/12/2019 Improvements to IGES import. 
  21. 5.00 06/01/2020 First 64 Bit Version released.
  22. 5.10 16/02/2020 Nastran Op2 support added for reading acceleration response data from sol 111. Note this version is not file backward compatible with previous releases.
  23. 5.2 11/04/2020 Non specific updates.
  24. 5.3 06/07/2020 Beam mesh on curve feature added. PCOMP no off layers bug fixed.
  25. 5.4 13/06/2020 Undo and Redo added (4 levels of undo)
  26. 5.5 19/07/2020 Text graphical object added plus case control written to Nastran deck for sol101. Note GRAV cards are not written to the deck.
  27. 5.6 23/02/2021
  28. 5.7 08/08/2021 New I, C, T beam sections added and much more!
  29. 5.8 22/01/2022 Added support for Nastran sol 111 RMS results data, CORD2R bug fixed,
  30. 5.9 15/05/2022 Support for response data Sol111 Accel, MPC force and CBUSH force - Mag/Phase and Real/Img now read
  31. 6.0 28/05/2022 New graph plotting support for Nastran sol111 Menu Item:- "Post-Processing->Graph Response Data".
  32. 6.1 15/01/2023 Various improvements and added functionality.

Known issues which we are seeking to resolve:
  1. J factor calculated from empirical equations from internet.
  2. Sweep angle not exact for surface revolves - NURBS issue
  3. Node positions on circles when using nodes on curve not exactly correct - NURBS issue
  4. Highlight issue with graphics card threading, needs to be turned off on the card.
  5. Still some issues with the tri-element bending formulation (integration) WIP.