Editing contours

QuickField allows editing contours in field picture windows. The following operations change the current contour state:

Adding lines
attaches a line segment or an arc to the contour. The arc is specified by its degree measure (zero means line segment) and two end points. Any arbitrary line may initiate the contour, but only adjacent lines are accepted later. The line cannot be added to the closed contour. There are two ways to add lines to contour:
Choose Pick Elements from Contour menu or context menu and then drag mouse with left button pressed.
Or, choose Add Lines from Contour menu or context menu and enter end points coordinates from keyboard.

Adding edges
appends the contour with an edge of the model. The contour may be initiated by any arbitrary edge, but only adjacent edges are accepted later. The edge cannot be added to the closed contour, or if the ending point of the contour does not currently coincide with model's vertex.
To add edges, choose Pick Elements from Contour menu or context menu and then pick series of adjacent edges with mouse.

Adding blocks
considers the current closed contour as a border of the plane region and updates that region by adding (or subtracting) a block of the model in the sense of set theory.
To add blocks, choose Pick Elements from Contour menu or context menu and then pick blocks with mouse.

Close contour
closes an open contour by connecting its open ends with a straight line or an arc, depending on current degree measure in the postprocessing toolbar.

Change direction
alters the contour direction.

Clear
deletes the entire contour.

Delete last
deletes the last element (line or edge) in the contour. Not applicable to multiply connected contours.

Save contour
To save contour choose Save Status in the File menu. The file type is *.sst. To open the contour use Restore Status command in the File menu.

Opened contour

Closed contour

Closed contour oriented counter clockwise

The direction of the contour is significant in the following cases:

For volume integrals, the domain of integration lies to the left of the contour.
For surface integrals, the positive normal vector points to the right relative to the contour direction.
The starting point of the contour corresponds to zero point at the x-axis of the X-Y plot.
If the plotted or the integrated function has different values to the left and to the right of the contour, the right-hand value is used.