How do you access the node numbers for a Beam Connection with ACT?

Eric Stamper

I can use the following to get the element number that's written to the ds.dat file for a beam connection object, but how do you access the node numbers?

beam = ExtAPI.DataModel.GetObjectsByType(DataModelObjectCategory.Beam)[0]
Analysis = Model.Analyses[0]
SolverData = Analysis.Solution.SolverData
BeamData = SolverData.GetObjectData(beam)
beamElmId = BeamData.ElementId

dir(BeamData)

['ElementId', 'MaterialId', 'RealConstantId']

I would have expected a 'NodeIds' method to also be available. Is there any way to get this information (without having to write out the ds.dat file)?

Mike.Thompson

@Eric Stamper , As you note there is no way to get the nodes directly. Instead you must use the API of the beam to get the “remote points” that it is connected to in Mechanical, and then do the similar process with the SolverData for the remote points to get the node ids for each. You can scope a beam to remote points from the tree (I like this explicit method), but by default a beam object will create “internal” remote points that are not displayed otherwise in the tree.
You can get the remote point object ids from:

B.InternalObject.MobileRemotePointSelection

B.InternalObject.ReferenceRemotePointSelection

I don't like this is based on the internal object, but it does work. I think a more reliable method is to promote to remote points in the tree and they are evident.