[Paraview] Common problems with Ensight files in ParaView

[Renato N. Elias]

Guys,

I'll list some problems related to Ensight's format with ParaView that I
have observed since I started using ParaView. The intention of this post is
not to reclaim anything. It's just to help PV beginners as well as collect
some experiences from other ParaView/Ensight users:

1) ParaView is not able to open Ensight's binary files written by Fortran
programs as UNFORMATTED. Thus, if you're a Fortran programmer, you
***MUST*** open your files as BINARY (form="binary"), otherwise ParaView
will not work properly. NOTE: Only some newer Fortran compilers (e.g.
Intel's Fortran) support binary files;

2) If you're worried about changing the "byte order" every time you're
loading an Ensight's binary file and if you're programming in Fortran, I'd
suggest you open your files with the byte order previously defined, e.g.,
open(unit=iens,file='foo.geo',form='binary',CONVERT='BIG_ENDIAN')

3) There are lots of filters in PV 2.4.3 version that has not been working
fine (or even disabled) -- a list of the disabled filters can be found in
previous posts. It seems the PV team has been re-developing the Ensight's
readers since the PV 2.2.1. Thus, if you're looking for a ParaView version
more stable with Ensight's formats, I guess, you should go through PV 2.2.1;

4) When working in parallel, the Ensight's server-of-server format (SOS)
only work to load a dataset and do some basic things. Some filters such as
"Append datasets", "Clean to grid" and further resources like: animate
transient datasets are not available yet;

5) If you're writing a Ensight's SOS file from a program (like me), be sure
that you're not putting extra blank spaces after the name of the case files.
I spent a good time comparing almost equal files in order to understand what
was going wrong. For example: 

machine id: localhost
executable: ensight7.server
directory:
login id:
casefile: "foo_4_00.case                           "

Is different than

machine id: localhost
executable: ensight7.server
directory:
login id:
casefile: "foo_4_00.case"

(***THE QUOTATION MARKS ARE TO REINFORCE WHAT I DID WRONG***)

6) Lookmark doesn't seem to work with Ensight's format. In all my tries PV
crashed :-(

7) An issue to be asked to the list: Has anyone got success in animating
more than 1000 time steps with ParaView and Ensight's files?


I can't remember nothing more but other issues are welcome ;-)
 

Renato N. Elias
===============================================
PhD student - http://www.nacad.ufrj.br/~rnelias
High Performance Computing Center
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
+55(21) 2562-8080