[Paraview] Wish list

[Berk Geveci]

Thanks Robert. This is great feedback. Comments are embedded below:

> Time Series
> ====================
> I'm using .pvd files with version 1.2 to display time series.  This
> works fairly well.  There are some enhancements that would be helpful,
> though.  In order of desirability.
> 
> 1. Look for an attribute such as SimulationTime in each DataSet and
> allow me to display that somewhere on the image.  That way I could
> easily see what simulation time I'm looking at. My time steps are
> rarely uniformly spaced in time, so there is no simple mapping between
> frame number and time value.
> 
> 2. Rather than just looking for a single attribute such as
> SimulationTime, let me include any number of attributes in the DataSet
> element, and give me some way to tell ParaView that I want to display
> some or all of those.  I often have a number of global attributes
> associated with a time step, for instance ComputationalStep and
> ExternalTemperature, and I'd like to display those values in the
> image.  A series of check boxes allowing me to choose which ones to
> display would be great.
> 
> 3. When I read in a .pvd file I get a slider that allows me to choose
> the time step.  I'd like sliders for other DataSet attributes,
> particularly SimulationTime.
> 
> 4. In the image, rather than just display the global attributes, such
> as SimulationTime, as a scalar, I'd like a thermometer type gauge that
> indicates how far through my time series I am.  In addition to static
> information, when I animate the time series that thermometer would
> give an indication of how quickly simulation time is advancing.  In
> know this won't be ideal, since my timesteps can vary between 1000
> seconds and a millisecond.

I understand your requirements. We need to seriously consider how we
need to handle time (and potentially other attributes associated with
datasets). This is in our todo list but not necessarily a short term
goal. 

> Data Interrogation
> ====================
> I haven't had much luck using the line probe.  Among other things, I'd
> like a line which changes with my animation.  Also, I can't figure out
> how to tell it which field to plot.  And, it would be great if I could
> display a few probed values in the image view.

This is in active development. Charles is working on improving it.

> I'd also like to be able to interogate along a contour and generate a
> line plot.

I don't exactly understand what "along a contour" means. How would you
define the (poly)line along which to interrogate?

> Finally, it would be really nice if I could enter a mode where I could
> mouse around and interrogate field values interactively.

I wholeheartedly agree. This is on top of my personal wish list too.
ParaView needs much better interrogation capabilities, including picking
(cells, points, on surfaces), labeling (cells ids, point ids) and
probing.

=Berk