[Paraview] Good file format for point data on a surface over 60, 000 timesteps

[Tyson Whitehead]

On 20/11/17 12:49 PM, Berk Geveci wrote:
> What kind of visualizations are they looking to do? It may be a good idea to treat time differently here given that it is the most dense dimensions. I am thinking of some sort of tabular format that can then be used with filtering to extract a time step. Potentially, even a database may work depending on what the end visualization product will be.

My understanding is they want to start by making a movie of the recorded pressure values interpolated (as some color ramp) across the structure surface and as this is what they are currently doing with their MATLAB code.

I ultimately expect they may come up with something else once they get the data in though and are able to play around with it (enabling playing around with it being a big part of why they are wanting to get it into ParaView).

While the local expert, I've only really go very very basic experience so far (all I've really done is work through the various tutorials and teach them in workshops), so I'm interested in any advice.

Compared to the tutorials, the strange thing about this data is the large number of time steps, that it is spatially irregular and sparse, and that it doesn't fully define the underlying object geometry (i.e., the geometry of the surface extends out past the last sample points due to each measurement point requiring drilling holes for measurement taps in the physical object).

Currently I'm think, if we can come up with a decent way of importing the data as a point set, of

https://blog.kitware.com/dataset-resampling-filters/

1. import the sample data as a point data set
2. use the point volume interpolate (or resample to image?) to create a mesh from it
3. use the re-sample with dataset to put that onto the actual physical geometery
4. save animation to get the desired movie

Is there a better way to do this?  Should I try and create some sort of irregular grid out of the sample data to avoid step 2?

Thanks!  -Tyson