The comma-separated table format that is supported by FEMAP is very simple. The following sample shows the basic capability, including titles and ID numbers, for a file with three output vectors:
, "title 1", "title 2", "title 3"
1, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0
2, 2.2, 3.1, 4.0
5, 1.4E2, 2.3E2, 0.111
10, , , 0.5
This file contains output for four entities (1, 2, 5 and 10). They could be either nodes or elements. There is no way to tell from the file. Note that since IDs are contained in the first column, the first record which contains the titles starts with a comma to skip the title for the IDs. You could also specify a title for the IDs, but it will be ignored.
The titles in the first record are text and must be less than 25 characters long each. Typically you should enclose them in quotes, as shown, but this is not required as long as no commas are contained in the title. If you specify any titles in the file, you must specify a title for all vectors.
Output data is specified in the remaining records. Each record corresponds to a node or element, and contains one output field for each vector that will be created. You can skip intermediate fields just by entering a series of commas (like entity 10 above, where the 0.5 is for the third vector). All skipped data will have the value of 0.0. If you do not specify titles in the file, the first record must contain output for all vectors. Later records can omit data for trailing output vectors if you want the values to be 0.0. The numeric values can be in floating point or exponential format. You can enclose the output values in quotes, if you want, but they are not required.
If you do not include the ID column, data for all nodes/elements must be present, and must be in numerical order corresponding to the entities in your FEMAP model. If IDs are not present, the first title will correspond to the first output vector (the leading comma should not be present).