[Paraview] Using XDMF to visualize particle tracks stored in HDF5 file

[Jiri Vyskocil]

Hello,

I want to visualize tracks of a couple thousand particles from and HDF5 file (optionally including time evolution of the positions, but for starters, tracks would be sufficient).

The HDF5 file is organized as follows:

- Each particle is in its own group identified by particle ID (an integer in the code)
- the group contains several 1D arrays which store time evolution of the particle:
  t - the time 
  x, y, z - coordinates (i.e. in time t[4], coordinates are x[4], y[4], z[4])
  momentum, energy, etc.

So something like:

particles.h5:/123456/t
particles.h5:/123456/x
particles.h5:/123456/y
particles.h5:/123456/z
particles.h5:/123456/ene

The length of the arrays is different for each particle, as they enter and exit the area of interest in different times. What I woud want to do is to draw the trajectories of all these particles (or a subset, etc. as there is thousands of them).

How do I describe this in XDMF? 
Should I use the Polyvertex Topology, as my file stores unconnected points? How do I then express the fact, that a set of points is a sort of timeseries belonging to a single particle, and that they form a track?


Thanks for any tips,
Jiri