File position

The file consists of a number of data items. The beginning of each item is marked by a corresponding file position which indicate the relative location of the data within the file. Both Macintosh and Windows API have functions setting and getting these file positions. Thus, the data need not be read sequentially. Instead, data items can be located, in any order, using the file position record, and read the item starting from the position. T h e re are two file position records: modeling data position and analysis data position. The file position of the modeling data items are recorded in the modeling data position record, and those for the analysis result items are recorded in the analysis data position record.

The modeling data positions are obtained and recorded while the VisualFEA file is being saved at the end of modeling. The analysis data file positions are picked and written together with analysis results during processing stage, whichever one of VisualFEA's own solver or an external solver is used for processing. If the analysis results computed by external solvers are going to be visualized by VisualFEA, it is the responsibility of the solver to keep track of the file positions and record them together with the analysis data.