[Paraview] animations with Xdmf Format

[Eric Monson]

Hey Dinesh,

If your data is a regular grid in all dimensions (2 or 3DCORECTMESH in  
Xdmf) then .vti format would be appropriate.

Earlier this week I wrote a Python script which grabs data from an  
HDF5 file (sim output from my collaborators) and writes .vtu files for  
unstructured grids and .vti files for the image data. Since it was my  
first Python program, I'm not sure how nice it is, but it works. It's  
also not very generic -- I needed a fast solution for a presentation  
next week, so it's very tailored to my application and HDF5 file  
structure. With these caveats, if you'd like to look at it as an  
example, I can send it to you.

Otherwise, I don't know of any converters out there. Maybe someone  
else has done this in a more general and elegant way.

Talk to you later,
-Eric


On Dec 14, 2007, at 11:07 AM, Dinesh Kumar wrote:

> Hello Eric,
>
> Thanks a lot for your email. Do I need to output files in .vti  
> format? So far we have been using tecplot and hdf5 formats. I like  
> hf5 for its elegance. Do you know of any utility program which will  
> convert hdf5 or Xdmf to .vti format.
>
> Once again thanks for the response.
> best regards
> --dinesh
>
> Eric Monson wrote:
>> Hello Dinesh,
>>
>> From what I understand, you can't use a .pvd file with Xdmf -- only  
>> with VTK XML files (.vtu, .vti, .vtp, etc). Right now, ParaView  
>> support for Xdmf is still in transition (from Xdmf v.1 to v.2).  
>> Here is a summary from a recent reply to me by Dave DeMarle:
>>
>>> The transition is not yet complete, but we (Kitware and ARL) are  
>>> working toward updating VTK and ParaView support for XDMF as part  
>>> of the ParaView 3.4 development effort.
>>>
>>> This is a summary of the state of  XDMF in ParaView 3.2:
>>> * The writer writes files in the original XDMF format. It has not  
>>> yet been rewritten to take advantage of the new features in the  
>>> new XDMF.
>>> * The reader partially supports the new XDMF format. It is not yet  
>>> capable of producing deep tree structures, and instead collapses  
>>> them to a single level.
>>> * Temporal support and Parameter support have been temporarily  
>>> removed from XDMF and thus ParaView. We plan to add them back, but  
>>> until then you will have to shoehorn them in as you have suggested.
>>
>> So, if you want to animate Xdmf files, you will have to follow the  
>> instructions in "Making custom readers work with file series" in  
>> the ParaView Animating_legacy_VTK_file_series Wiki entry. (http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/Animating_legacy_VTK_file_series 
>> ) If you want to animate using PVD files, you will have to convert  
>> your files to XML-based VTK format.
>>
>> Here is an example of a PVD file in case it's helpful:
>>
>> <?xml version="1.0"?>
>> <VTKFile type="Collection" version="0.1" byte_order="LittleEndian"  
>> compressor="vtkZLibDataCompressor">
>>    <Collection>
>>        <DataSet timestep="0.00" group="" part="0"  
>> file="Fig3_cells_0000.vti"/>
>>        <DataSet timestep="0.25" group="" part="0"  
>> file="Fig3_cells_0010.vti"/>
>>        <DataSet timestep="0.50" group="" part="0"  
>> file="Fig3_cells_0020.vti"/>
>>        <DataSet timestep="0.75" group="" part="0"  
>> file="Fig3_cells_0030.vti"/>
>>        <DataSet timestep="1.00" group="" part="0"  
>> file="Fig3_cells_0040.vti"/>
>>        <DataSet timestep="1.25" group="" part="0"  
>> file="Fig3_cells_0050.vti"/>
>>        <DataSet timestep="1.50" group="" part="0"  
>> file="Fig3_cells_0060.vti"/>
>>        <DataSet timestep="1.75" group="" part="0"  
>> file="Fig3_cells_0070.vti"/>
>>    </Collection>
>> </VTKFile>
>>
>> Good luck,
>> -Eric
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------
>> Eric E. Monson
>> Duke Visualization Technology Group
>>
>>
>> On Dec 13, 2007, at 3:50 PM, Dinesh Kumar wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Xdmf users,
>>>
>>> I was looking for some help on creating animations with Paraview  
>>> 3.xx. On wiki there is some hint about putting all the files into  
>>> a .pvd file with time-step information. Has anyone done that  
>>> successfully already? If yes can you please guide me. I small pvd  
>>> example file would be a great help.
>>>
>>> best regards
>>> --dinesh
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> ParaView mailing list
>>> ParaView at paraview.org
>>> http://www.paraview.org/mailman/listinfo/paraview
>>
>>