[Paraview] Data formats and XDMF

[Lucas Clemente Vella]

Hi,

I need to write the output of a CFD code, attributes are cell centered
and my mesh looks like the picture attached: orthogonal edges, cells
are rectangular, but unstructured (leafs of a tree, not necessarily
octree).

I know how to work with HDF5, thus I prefer to write it in XDMF +
HDF5, but I could settle with any format that provides compression,
and I am able to write the tree once, and reuse it with different
attribute fields per time step (I know how to do it both from XDMF and
directly from HDF5).

So, is XDMF recommended, or should I use something else?

Also, in the picture, the bigger cell, can it be written as a
hexahedron, ignoring that one face actually interfaces with 4 other
cells, or should I describe it as a 9 face polyhedron, where there are
4 coplanar faces? The former is much easier, is there any difference
from visualization standpoint? Is it more "correct" to use a 9 face
polyhedron?

I have an idea on how to make a XDMF using only hexahedron, but not a
clue with polyhedra of variable number of faces. Could you please
assemble a sample XDMF depicting that mesh for me to use as base?

-- 
Lucas Clemente Vella
lvella at gmail.com
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