[Paraview] Suggested format for open unstructured CFD including surface geometry?

[Adriano Gagliardi]

This is something I assumed they were doing, but with the limited experience
I have using FieldView I was never sure. As you said, Tecplot and Ensight
appear to do well enough with their open formats, and if I'm correct are
cheaper per licence too. (On a side note, having used them both extensively
and realise their individual merits, I believe ParaView is at least as
capable as them both, but with more potential.)

I didn't realise that there already existed a converter in OpenFOAM to
FieldView format. I'll take a look and keep you posted, but it may be a week
or so before I get round to working on it.

Adriano

p.s. Ensight Gold is a solid format from my own experience and most packages
can handle it.

===================================

Adriano Gagliardi MEng PhD
Project Scientist
Computational Aerodynamics
Aircraft Research Association Ltd.
Manton Lane
Bedford

Tel: 01234 32 4644
E-mail: agagliardi at ara.co.uk
Url: www.ara.co.uk 
-----Original Message-----
From: A. Austen [mailto:metallurgist at airpost.net] 
Sent: 21 August 2009 23:10
To: Adriano Gagliardi; Bastil2001 at yahoo.de; 'ParaView'
Subject: RE: [Paraview] Suggested format for open unstructured CFD including
surface geometry?

On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 08:39 +0100, "Adriano Gagliardi"
<agagliardi at ara.co.uk> wrote:
> I was intending on writing a FieldView reader, but I couldn't find any 
> documentation describing its formats.

This is by deliberate action of the company that makes FieldView,
"Intelligent Light."  The documentation for the FieldView file formats is
part of the overall documentation set which is expressly distributed under
an "End User License Agreement" that forbids the dissemination of covered
materials to non-licensees.  They believe that making their file formats
open gives their competition an advantage.  I can't say that I even remotely
agree with this (EnSight andTecplot, are just a couple of counterexamples),
but they are probably not going to change their minds until their licensed
users get upset and organized about lobbying them on this issue.  This is
why I'm interested in writing a translator for my own use, so I'm not
forever stuck with only one visualization/post-processing tool for my
datasets.

So the consensus is that I should target the EnSight file format?  I'm
looking at their documentation now...

 
> ===================================
> 
> Adriano Gagliardi MEng PhD
> Project Scientist
> Computational Aerodynamics
> Aircraft Research Association Ltd.
> Manton Lane
> Bedford
> 
> Tel: 01234 32 4644
> E-mail: agagliardi at ara.co.uk
> Url: www.ara.co.uk
> -----Original Message-----
> From: paraview-bounces at paraview.org
> [mailto:paraview-bounces at paraview.org]
> On Behalf Of Bastil2001 at yahoo.de
> Sent: 20 August 2009 21:11
> To: A. Austen; 'ParaView'
> Subject: Re: [Paraview] Suggested format for open unstructured CFD 
> including surface geometry?
> 
> Ensight is quite a common format. However I would be very interested 
> in having a Fieldview-Reader for Paraview...
> 
> Regards BastiL
> 
> A. Austen schrieb:
> > Hello all.
> >
> > I'm interested in using ParaView  to view unstructured CFD solutions. 
> > I'm currently using a proprietary flow solver which outputs results 
> > in FieldView-Unstructured format.  The nice thing about that format 
> > is that it allows the inclusion of not just the solution grid, but 
> > also all the boundary surface geometry.
> >
> > However, I'm not crazy about being stuck with FieldView as my only 
> > option, so I'd like to write a translator to output an equivalent 
> > dataset in a more open format.  I've looked at CGNS, but it expects 
> > the user to link to external CAD files to provide the surface 
> > geometry.  Is there a recommended file format supported by VTK that 
> > is well-documented which includes the capability to include the 
> > surface geometry as a triangular surface mesh?  The geometric body 
> > definitions in my existing FieldView-Unstructured files consist of 
> > triangular surface meshes, a la FACET or STL, and in fact starts out 
> > as a FACET input into the flow solver.
> >
> >   
> 
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