User interface: Tools menu

Set thread count

Allows you to change the number of execution threads used by OrcaWave for parallel processing. OrcaWave performs the calculation of each wave period or frequency in parallel. This means that performance can be significantly improved for models with more than one period or frequency.

OrcaWave manages a number of execution threads to perform the parallel calculations. The number of these threads (the thread count) defaults to the number of logical processors available on your machine, as reported by the operating system. This default usually works well, but if your model requires a lot of memory you may need to reduce the thread count so that the total required by all threads does not exceed the memory available on your machine. This is common for models with very large meshes. To help guide your choice, the validation page gives an estimate of the memory your model will require per thread during the calculation.

The thread count can also be controlled by a command line switch.

Preferences

Allows you to control various program settings so that you can customise OrcaWave to the way you prefer to work.

Default data file type, default wire frame view file type, default spreadsheet file type

When you save a file you can select which format to use with the save as type drop-down on the standard file dialog. The default file type preferences allows you to control which file format is first selected when a file dialog opens.

JPEG compression quality

A value between 1 and 100 that determines the quality of exported JPEG files. Lower values have poorer visual quality, but greater compression (i.e. smaller file size). Higher values have better visual quality, but less compression (i.e. larger file size).

Minimum digits after decimal separator

Controls the formatting of floating point values. OrcaWave attempts to show at least the specified number of digits after the decimal separator. This may not always be achieved if there are too many digits before the decimal separator, or if engineering notation is used.

View rotation increment

Each click on a 3D view rotation button increments or decrements the view azimuth or elevation by this amount.

Mesh view text scale

Determines the size of text in the mesh view, e.g. when drawing panel indices. A value of 100% gives the default size.

Modified data colour

The colour used to highlight tracked changes on data forms.

Add program/file details to output

If this is checked, then external output includes text with details of the program version, file name, file modified time etc.

Monochrome output

If this is checked, then external output (clipboard, exported images, printing etc.) is in black and white. This is useful with black and white printers, since otherwise pale colours may be drawn in very light grey and may be hard to see.

Show warning message when saving binary data file format for variation models and restart analyses

The warning message displayed when saving a variation model or restart analysis as a binary data file can be disabled by checking don't show this message again on the warning message form. Once this message has been disabled, it will not be shown again unless this preference is checked.