[Paraview] Physical Boundary Condition ID in VTK Data structure

[Parker, Andrew (UK Filton)]

Dear All,
 
Quite simply, I'm using gmsh to generate surface meshes for a CFD
simulation. Gmsh has the wonderful feature of being able to add a
boundary ID flag to a surface or collection of surfaces, this is
essential of setting up a computational problem as I'm sure you all
know.  The idea being that one may collect all the walls together and
give them the flag "WALL" or "1", and then like wise for all other
physical geometry types.  However, gmsh writes out a vtk file for the
mesh only.  Having been in contact with the author of the program, he's
agreed to modify the source and add the boundary condition data to the
vtk mesh file and write all of this out, an amazing contribution, since
this does feature in the open source as a tool chain, i.e read in CAD
file -> mesh -> define boundaries -> write out in standard format (for
all platforms), that I know of at least.  I said I would ask/find out
what new data structure he needs to use/implement, and he would
implement it.
 
Two questions then: 
 
1)  What data structure is available in vtk that can hold a string
(preferably by a long shot) or integer per surface of a polygon?  
2)  Currently I am reading the mesh written by gmsh in vtk format into
paraview, will I be able to (if the above is an option), be able to read
into paraview whatever data structure type you're going to recommend and
crucially see the physical boundary condition flags that I added in gmsh
within paraview?

Many thanks, please ask if you require clarity.
 
Andy

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