What is Test for I-DEAS™

  • whatistestforideasConvenient and powerful noise and vibration and DSA (Dynamic/Digital Signal Analysis) software solution
  • Intuitive, easy to use, wizards / toolbars / icons based GUI
  • Customizable layout, toolbars, pull-down menus and user-defined commands
  • Offers a broad scope of noise and vibration application functionality
  • Supports powerful tools for Acoustics and Modal test
  • Provides 3D graphs and animation capabilities in test and analysis reports
  • User programmable Tasks

Test for I-deas capabilities

  • Data Acquisition – Support for multiple hardware frontends, including VXI, VTI EMX, Brüel & Kjær LAN-XI. Full List
  • Signal Generation – to drive shakers or other sources. Includes Random, Burst Random, Sine and user defined waveform.
  • Transducer Calibration – multiple methods including drop, mass, and reference.
  • Time history editing – across single or multiple channels.
  • Signal Processing – Windowing, FFT, single and multi-function operations. Function graphing. Cut paste live function displays to MS Office.
  • Modal Testing – Calculation of Mode Indicator functions, multiple curve fitters, including polyreference. Cut paste live mode shape displays to MS Office.
  • Transient Post Processing – For analysis of signals that change over time.
  • Order Tracking – for rotating machinery, display spectra based on order. Interactive Slice tool for rapid analysis.
  • Noise Path Analysis – Determine structure-borne transmission paths, rank individual paths, and evaluate noise sources.
  • Built in Programming Language – for automating repetitive tasks.

External solver support

The following table lists the latest supported version of each external solver for this release:

Solver Latest version
Import Export
Nastran MSC 2011 and NXN 8 (ASCII and binary OP2) MSC 2013 and NXN 10
ANSYS 12 (binary RST/RTH) 12
Abaqus 6.9 (ASCII and binary FIL) 6.5 (binary ODB) 6.9
LS-DYNA 970 970
PAMCRASH 2003 2003
RADIOSS 4.2 4.2

Features for Test for I-deas

Support for Windows 8.1

Test for I-deas 6.5 has been validated to run with Windows 8.1. Windows 8 is not supported. Testing shows that a clean install of Windows 8.1 is preferred, upgrading from Windows 8 will require additional steps prior to installation. This validation only covers the Test application in I-deas.

Support for VTI Instruments SentinelEX

Test for I-deas now supports the SentinelEX frontend for Signal Processing. The supported hardware includes: Interfaces:

  • VTI EMX-2500
  • VTI EMX-2401 embedded controller

Modules:

  • VTI EMX-4250 16-channel 204.8 kSa/s IEPE Digitizer
  • VTI EMX-4251 8-channel 204.8 kSa/s IEPE Digitizer
  • VTI EMX-4350 4-channel 625 kSa/s IEPE Digitizer
  • VTI EMX-4380 4-channel 625 kSa/s IEPE Digitizer with charge and voltage
  • VTI EMX-1434 4-channel 192 kHz Arbitrary Waveform Source

Source Setup in Channel Spreadsheet

The Channel Spreadsheet utility has been expanded to include a dialog that you can use to set up and control source output.

CTS_Sources

Normal Mode Tuning 2.0

The Normal Mode Tuning product has been rewritten to remove the dependency on HP VEE and to support additional front ends. The major features are:

  • Support for SentinelEX and VXI hardware from VTI Instruments.
  • Control for up to 20 sources.
  • Autoranging of channel input ranges with user specified overhead.
  • Master level control that allows you to adjust all excitation levels simultaneously. This allows investigation of effects of structural non-linearities.
  • Waveforms and mode shapes can be captured for further processing using Test for I-deas
  • Results displayed include:
    • Channel Magnitudes
    • Lissajous plot
    • Complex plane scatter plot
    • Waveform display
    • Force levels table

NMT

Time Capture for Step Sine Measurements

Time Capture is now allowed for Step Sine measurements. Step Sine uses a block mode so that the time data will be captured as one or more blocks at each frequency step.