Iteration Cycling

Iteration cycling lets you step through the optimization iterations of a solver job to see how the design evolved. Only one iteration is visible at a time -- the others are hidden automatically.

Enable cycling

Open a solver job in the sidebar that has more than one optimization iteration. Click the Cycle Iterations button. The iteration cycling controls appear in both the sidebar and the results toolbar.

To stop cycling, click Stop in the sidebar card or close the cycling controls. When cycling stops, all iteration results return to their previous visibility state.

Toolbar controls

When iteration cycling is active, a third group of controls appears in the results toolbar (to the right of the animation controls), separated by a divider:

1. Previous (skip-back icon) -- go to the previous iteration.
2. Play/Pause -- start or stop automatic playback through iterations.
3. Next (skip-forward icon) -- go to the next iteration.
4. Scrub slider -- drag to jump to any iteration directly.
5. Counter -- shows the current position as 5 / 30 (current iteration number out of total).
6. Speed dropdown -- click to choose a playback speed preset.

Sidebar controls

The sidebar iteration cycling panel shows the same controls in a vertical layout:

• The name of the current iteration result (or "Iteration N" if unnamed).
• A counter (e.g., 5 / 30).
• A scrub slider spanning all iterations.
• Previous, Play/Pause, and Next buttons.
• A speed dropdown selector.

Playback speed presets

The speed dropdown offers the following presets (iterations per second):

Preset	Iterations per second
0.25x	One iteration every 4 seconds
0.5x	One iteration every 2 seconds
1x	One iteration per second
2x	Two iterations per second (default)
4x	Four iterations per second
8x	Eight iterations per second

The sidebar additionally offers a 16x preset. The toolbar offers presets from 0.25x through 8x.

When playback reaches the last iteration, it loops back to the first.

Keyboard shortcuts

While iteration cycling is active, the following keyboard shortcuts are available. They are ignored when a text input field is focused.

Shortcut	Action
Left Arrow	Previous iteration
Right Arrow	Next iteration
Space	Toggle play/pause

See also the full Keyboard Shortcuts reference.

Related pages

• Interpret Results -- understand what each iteration's density field shows.
• Convergence Panel -- chart how metrics change across iterations.
• Deformation Animation -- animate displacement for a single iteration result.