[Paraview] Best way to represent a network of contacts

[Eric E. Monson]

Hey William,

Have you included the "connectivity structure" explicitly in the data you're visualizing (as edges between the grain centers), or is your data really a bunch of vertices with the connectivity embedded in a vector attribute at each vertex? If the contact "lines" are really part of the data then you can probably use a Tube filter which scales its size (radius) with a scalar value.

If the "lines" are only included as vector data on the points then it might be more challenging since the Glyph filter scales in all three directions equally according to your vector or scalar magnitude (except in vector_components mode). At one point I made a modified version of the vtkGlyph3D filter as a ParaView plugin which would only scale the glyph in the direction of the vector (with a constant scaling in the other two directions) -- it sounds like you would need the opposite: a glyph that scaled a constant amount in the direction of the vector and variable according to scalar/vector in the other two directions.

Another possibility might be to use color instead of line/tube thickness...

Would you be able to post a sample of your data (vtp file) someplace so some of us could play with possibilities?

Talk to you later,
-Eric


On Dec 29, 2010, at 8:50 PM, William Oquendo wrote:

> Dear all,
> I am performing Discrete Element Simulations of granular materials. I have successfully employed Paraview to visualize the grains and to filter by its  scalar and vectorial data, printing to vtk xml vtp files. Now, I would like to use Paraview to explore the connectivity structure of the contacts, and, for instance, to be able to scale/color/etc by normal force magnitude and so on. I would like to know what is the best way to represent the contacts among particles. In principle, they are "lines" that goes from  the center of one particle to the other. Its "width" could be proportional to some scalar value, like the normal force magnitude. 
> 
> I tried to use lines, and in order to scale to use a glyph. Unfortunately, the glyphs are applied to the points of the line. Should I use just points and apply a cylinder glyph on them? how can I "orient" the glyph to point from center to center? the normal vectors attribute is useful for that?
> 
> Thanks for your kind attention, time, and help.
> 
> Best regards / Cordialmente,
> 
> --
> William Oquendo
> Phd Candidate
> Simulation Of Physical Systems Group
> Universidad Nacional de Colombia
> Linux User # 321481
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