Working with Plots
Adams PostProcessor also plots the results of simulations so you can interpret the performance of your design. In this section, you’ll view pages with plots on them, modify the plots, and create your own plots.
Viewing Pages of Plots
A page, called p3_plots, already exists that contains several plots that you will view. You’ll first view all the plots and then you’ll quickly zoom in on just one of the plots. Notice that p3_plots in the lower left corner is a plot that Adams PostProcessor has displayed as a table. In the treeview, it is still listed as a plot.
To view the plotting page:
1. In the treeview, select p3_plots.
Adams PostProcessor switches to plotting mode and displays the plots.
2. Click the plot in the upper right corner of the window and, from the Main toolbar, select the Expand View 
tool.
tool. Adams PostProcessor displays only the selected plot.
3. To return to viewing all the plots, select the Expand View 
tool again.
tool again. Modifying Plotting Objects
You can tailor the appearance of plots to help you identify the information in the plot more effectively or to make the plot ready for a presentation. In this section, you’ll turn off the grid lines and change the line style of the curves of one of the plots.
Displaying the Table as a Plot
Before you begin to change the look of plots, you’ll change the plot displayed as a table (plot_4) back to being an xy plot.
To change the table to a plot:
1. In the viewport, select plot_4.
2. In the property editor, clear the selection of Table.
Turning Off Grid Lines
In Adams PostProcessor, plots contain primary and secondary grid lines that serve as visual guides for inspecting curves. Primary grid lines appear at all major unit sections. Secondary grid lines appear at specified intervals between the primary grid lines. In this section, you’ll turn off the visibility of the grid lines in one plot. You’ll do this by selecting the plot and then editing its properties in the Property Editor.
To turn off primary lines:
1. Click the border of the plot in the upper right corner.
Notice that the viewport border turns red to indicate that you’ve selected it. In addition, the treeview highlights the plot. You are now ready to edit the properties of the selected plot.
2. In the property editor, select Grid.
3. Clear the selection of Visible.
4. In the property editor, select the right arrow key to display more tabs.
5. Select 2nd Grid.
6. Clear the selection of Visible.
Changing Color and Line Style of All Curves
Now you’ll use the treeview to learn how to modify a group of common objects all at once. In this example, you’ll change the line styles of all the curves in the plots on page p3_plots.
To change all curves:
1. To expand the treeview so it displays all plots on the page p3_plots, in the treeview, click the plus sign (+) in front of the page p3_plots.
2. Now click the plus sign (+) in front of each plot on the page p3_plots to see all the objects in the plots.
3. In the treeview, hold down the Ctrl key, and select each curve on page p3_plots.
4. In the property editor, from the Line Style box, select Dash.
All the curves change to dashed lines.
To reset the filter to show all objects:
■Right-click the background of the treeview, point to Type Filter, and then select All.
Creating New Plots
You can also create your own plots as shown in the next steps.
Creating a Page
Before you can create a plot, you need to create a page for it.
To create a page:
■On the Main toolbar, select the New Page 
tool.
tool. ■Because you are in plotting mode, Adams PostProcessor displays plots on which to add data. If you were in animation mode, Adams PostProcessor would display empty viewports for loading animations.
To set the layout of the page so it contains two viewports:
■In the Main toolbar, right-click the Page Layout tool stack, and then select 
.
. Adding Data to the Plot
Now that you have a new page, you can display some curves on it. In plot mode, the dashboard contains the numeric results of loaded simulation results. It displays the objects, measures, requests, and result sets from Adams simulations and any results from clearance studies. The results that you have available depend on the output that you requested from your Adams product. For information on the different results you can generate, see your Adams product online help.
In this tutorial, you’ll use requests, which provide standard displacement, velocity, acceleration, or force information that will help you investigate the results of your simulation. Requests also let you define other quantities (such as pressure, work, energy, momentum, and more) that you want generated during a simulation.
To add a curve to the plot, select the following from the dashboard:
1. In the dashboard, in the Request box, select REQ1080 TOE CASTER CAMBER (FRONT).
2. In the Component box, select X, Y, and Z.
3. Select Add Curves.
4. Now add more curves by selecting different data from the dashboard and selecting Add Curves.
Surfing Through Data
In the previous section, for each request you selected, Adams PostProcessor added new curves to your plot. You can also plot your data without accumulating curves on your plot. This is called surfing. It is convenient for quickly looking at different data.
To quickly add data without creating new curves:
1. Select the plot on the right.
2. In the dashboard, select Surf.
3. Select the data that you’d like to view, as explained earlier.
You’ll notice that each time you select data, Adams PostProcessor replaces the existing curves with new curves.
Modifying a Curve
Not only can you view data in Adams PostProcessor, but you can also change and enhance it. In this tutorial, you’ll change the mathematical expression that creates a curve.
To change a curve:
1. Click a curve on the plot on the left.
2. At the top of the dashboard, select Math.
The dashboard displays the mathematical expressions used to calculate the curve.
3. In the Y Expression box, change the mathematical expression, and then select Apply. You can change it in different ways. For example, enter a negative sign (-) in front of the expression to invert the values or multiply the expression by 3.