assigning elevations to "locations"

Hi all, can you help with this?

need to assign elevations to a point shape file

point shape file generated outside (no elevations assigned, just x,y), imported as "map"
need to convert the points into a "location" set of 3D points to be used as starting particle locations
the intent is to assign these points the elevations from the active slice
in the map menu, I chose parameter association and connected shape with elevation, then "Activate link for data assignment", click the assign check-mark in the editor toolbar (progress bar indicated interpolation apparently was done), and converted the map to "location set"
however, the elevations were not interpolated from the active slice and assigned to the location set, there is constant dummy elevation (same for all points)
what needs to be done differently?

thanks

If I understood you correctly, you have a 2D Point Shapefile. Horizontally, these points spatially do not coincide with computational nodes of the mesh. Instead, these points are located within triangles. Based on this setting, you want to derive the Z-elevation at the locations of the Points stored within the Shapefile.

If this is true, you nmay develop a plugin (C/C++) or a script (Python) using the FEFLOW API (Application Programmers Interface). Use the following API function:
[font=courier][color=blue]
#include <ifm/document.h>
double IfmGetZValueAtXYSlice
(
IfmHandle pDoc,
double x,
double y,
int slc,
IfmBool *ine
);
[/color][/font]
Alternatively, you can easily do this task in GIS. Export the elevations of the Slice of interest into a Point Shapefile by right-clicking on Elevations in the Data Panel ==> Export Data. Load this file in GIS and generate a TIN (Triangulated Irregular Network). After that, use your initial Point Shapefile (the one you did not exported from FEFLOW) and write/project the elevations from the TIN into the attribute table of the shapefile. The Toolbox function in ArcGIS is called [b]AddSurfaceInformation[/b]. Older ArcGIS versions also called this function [b]SurfaceSpot[/b].

As a last step in GIS you need to generate a 3D Shapefile based on the new column of the attribute table storing the Z-values.

Load the 3D Shapefile into the Maps Panel of FEFLOW. Right-click on that and choose Convert to – Location Set Points from the Context Menu. These Points are now listed in the Entities Panel as 3D Point Set. Activate this 3D Point Set and generate your field lines as usual.

As a general alternative you can simply start with the particle tracks from a Slice. In this way, you do not need GIS or the FEFLOW API.