Introduction
Subsurface Ellipses are another closed boundary type that may be placed on the surface of an OpenVSP component. Similar to other closed subsurfaces, the boundary is defined by a UW center location, UW lengths, and a theta rotation. Ellipses, like other subsurface types, may be used to define isolated regions of the surface for export, analysis, or visualization.
Ellipses are unique in that they are also defined by the Num Points used to define the segments forming the ellipse. This means that they are technically N-sided polygons. You can use this to your advantage to create triangles, rectangles, pentagons, etc. on the surface of your component. If you wish to either bisect a corner of a polygon or make one side ‘normal’ in UW space, the quickest way to accomplish this is to use OpenVSP’s Smart Input feature and enter “180/N” in the Theta field where N is the Num Points used to define the shape.