Shell elements

Four-node shell elements shell4 are currently imported as mesh faces, with vertex hooked to the 4 objects associated with the MBDyn nodes the element connects.

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No attempt is made, at this stage, to visualize the effects of the node rotations.

When shell4 is selected in the MBDyn elements list panel in the Scene Properties panel, a second dropdown menu is displayed, providing for the choice of importing the elements joined as part of a single mesh object or as separated mesh objects.

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Please be aware that Blender is optimized to support relatively few, possibily very complex (i.e. having a large number of vertices) mesh objects. So if the number of shell elements in your model is high, you should probably import them in batches (possibily a single one, if the structure of your model allow it) by selecting the Joined in single mesh option. The elements will be imported as the (quad) faces of a single mesh object called shell4_MIN_MAX, with MIN and MAX being, respectively, the first element to import and last element to import properties shown in the sliders above the Import elements by type button.