Hi everyone,

If you wish to find the nearest node or an element to a given point (coordinates in the space) you need not loop through all the nodes or elements in the mesh and check the distance.  There are nodes._findAt or elements._findAt methods that find the closest node/element in so far as it lies within a distance of 1% of the mesh’s bounding box size.  You can also specify multiple points at which to find nodes or elements.

>>> p = mdb.models['Model-1'].parts['Part-1']

>>> p.nodes._findAt((47.5,12.5,20.))

mdb.models['Model-1'].parts['Part-1'].nodes[163]

>>> p.elements._findAt((47.5,12.5,20.))

mdb.models['Model-1'].parts['Part-1'].elements[83]

Thanks,

Srikanth