Simcenter Testing Solutions
Simcenter Testlab Universal File Export - How to interpret the Universal File Header
2021-08-09T14:13:11.000-0400
Simcenter Testlab
Summary
This article will illustrate how to interpret the Universal File Header of a Dataset 58 after an export from Testlab.
Details
In almost all development processes today, close and seamless cooperation between testing and simulation is extremely important. Universal File Format is used often to transfer the result from testing to simulation environment. A correct interpretation of an exported file from measurement is crucial for further calculation in the simulation software.
The next sections will guide the user through the export process in Testlab and will show how to interpret information contained in the header of a universal file Dataset 58 exported from a Testlab data block.
File export in Testlab
If the measurements are done in Testlab, navigate to the Navigator Worksheet and select the file(s), that you want to export. Figure 1 displays the Export to a Universal File from an FRF file.
Figure 1: Export to Universal File in Testlab
Browse to the measured data, with a right-button mouse-click you can select the Export to - Universal File. There are a lot of additional options which can be selected with the export, for instance the geometry export as well as other options which are displayed in Figure 2. Browse to the folder where the file should be stored and click the save button.
Figure 2: Select Universal File window
Interpretation of the Universal File Header Once the Universal File (UNV) has been created, it is possible to open the file with any text editor and check the entries. Figure 3 shows how to interpret the entries of a UNV file based on three illustrated areas: Record 1, 3 and 6.
Important note: The header we are discussing here always begins after the lines "-1; -1; 58".
Figure 3: Interpretation of the Universal File Header
Additional information about the Universal File Dataset can be found under this following link - https://docs.plm.automation.siemens.com/tdoc/nx/12/nx_help#uid:xid1128419:index_advanced:xid1404601:xid1404604:xid457305. Universal File is a file in an ASCII format, containing symbolic data in physical records with a maximum record length of 80 characters and it uses FORTRAN statement format for data input. As example, under Record 6 you can see the order of the entries of the measured Reference DOF ID’s: Record 6: Format(2(I5,I10),2(1X,10A1,I10,I4)) I à Integer A à Ascii X à Space So, the record can be interpreted as: twice a 5-digit integer followed by a 10-digit integer; then twice a space, a 10-byte ascii string, a 10-digit integer, a 4-digit integer.
If you have Questions, contact your local Support Engineer or open a ticket on the Simcenter Support Portal.
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