Support section files

In order to see what a support section file looks like, it is convenient to export an existing one and open it in a text editor. For example, from the onshore template, go to the Support structure ->Tubular tower part and click the Export to file part action, as shown in the picture below



The support section files have these properties: 
  • Lines starting with the character # denotes a comment line, and are not considered input data. These lines are useful for writing comments etc. in your file. 
  • The file is divided into multiple sections. In all sections, the first line must contain a valid keyword. Some example Keywords used in a support section file are Materials, Nodes, and RNA nodes
  • Below the keyword, a table of data follows. The number of values on each line of the table depends on the section type. 
  • At least one blank line must be inserted after each section. 
  • Columns are separated by a single whitespace character. We recommend using a tab ("\t") as the delimiter, since that is the default when you export files. 
  • Columns with a parameter name written in square brackets ("[ ]") are optional and have a default value if left empty. The default value is given in parenthesis. 

The picture below shows the Nodes section of the tubular tower of the onshore template. The following points can be made about this section: 
  • from lines 103 to 107, a description of the section is given. These lines start withe the character # and will therefore not be read by Ashes. 
  • line 109 contains the keyword Nodes, that indicates to Ashes that what follows is the definition of the nodes of the structure. 
  • line 110 is again preceeded by the # character, meaning that it is only informative and will not be read by Ashes. 
  • lines 111 to 129 define the nodes of the structure. 
  • at least one blank line follows the table of data. 
In this example, the column Point masses is optional. If no value is specified, no point mass will be added to the node. 



The Keywords section lists all the keywords used in Ashes and gives a brief description of what they do. The Support section examples section shows how these keywords are organized for each template.