Description: You can drag interior and exterior nodes of a mesh to change element shape and quality. Node dragging has been added to the node modification tools in the Edit Mesh toolset. When you activate node dragging, Abaqus/CAE activates element quality highlighting so you can see any elements that have warnings or failures. The highlighting is updated as you drag a node; therefore, you can immediately see whether you are improving poor elements—or at least make certain that you are not creating more poor elements—by moving the node.

By default, mesh nodes are constrained to the geometry with which they are associated; a dragged surface node must stay on the original surface, an edge node must stay on the edge, and a node associated with a vertex cannot be dragged. However, if you toggle off Project to geometry in the prompt area, you can drag nodes to any location in a plane parallel to the screen and passing through the starting location of the node. Interior nodes are not constrained to geometry; therefore, they are always moved in a plane parallel to the screen.

You can drag only one node at a time. You can drag orphan or native mesh nodes on dependent or independent instances in an assembly. Dragging nodes in a dependent part instance will change the part mesh and all instances of the part.

Mesh module:
    Edit Mesh dialog box: Category: Node: Method: Drag: toggle Project to geometry in the 
    prompt area: click and hold mouse button 1 to drag a node to a new location