Post-processing: Introduction

OrcaFlex users often use spreadsheets to post-process their OrcaFlex results. This can be done manually by transferring the results from OrcaFlex into the spreadsheet using copy + paste. However, this is laborious and error prone if a lot of results need transferring, so we have developed special facilities to automate the process.

This automation is done using an Excel spreadsheet that has facilities for automatic extraction of specified results from one or more OrcaFlex files into nominated cells in the spreadsheet. You can then use the normal spreadsheet facilities to calculate other post-processed results from those OrcaFlex results.

Creating OrcaFlex spreadsheets

You can create OrcaFlex spreadsheets from an Excel template that is supplied with OrcaFlex. You should base your own OrcaFlex spreadsheets on this template, which can be found in the OrcaFlex installation folder. To create your own OrcaFlex spreadsheet, open the Windows Start menu and select Programs | Orcina (or, depending on your version of Windows, go to all apps and the Orcina group) and then select New OrcaFlex spreadsheet. This shortcut creates a new spreadsheet based on the template.

Before you try to use the new spreadsheet you need to save it. It is usually most convenient to save it to the directory containing the OrcaFlex files from which you want to extract results. You can then specify the names of those files in the spreadsheet using relative paths. Using relative paths makes it easier to rename the directory or move the spreadsheet and OrcaFlex files to some other directory.