[Paraview] Issues with ParticlePath filter

[Evan Kao]

Hello all,

Version: Paraview 4.4 64-bit on Windows 8 installed from binaries

I've been playing around with the ParticlePath filter and it's been a bit
of a frustrating experience because it seems to crash all the time.  I
think I've identified two sources of the crashing:

1) It crashes when there are no particles left.  I tested this by setting
the Force Injection parameter to zero and nonzero values.  This is an
issue, since sometimes I just want to follow an initial set of particles
without cluttering it with new particles.  So in order to do that now, I
would have to carefully step the end time until it crashes, and then reload
the state.

2) It crashes if the end time is beyond what Paraview *thinks* is the last
time step.  This is an issue because I use the Temporal Interpolator to
create periodic data with multiple cycles and for some reason it seems like
ParticlePath does not take the periodicity into account.  I tested this by
first using ParticlePath directly after Temporal Interpolator and then
using ParticlePath after exporting the interpolated data and importing it
into a new session.  In the first case, it will crash after the end of the
first cycle.  In the second case, it will (usually) make it through both
cycles without crashing.

So there are workarounds both issues, but the workflow seems more
cumbersome than it should be.  So I guess my question is, is there a
better/smarter way to use the ParticlePath filter than the way I'm using
it?  Maybe a "best practices" guide?

Additionally, is there way to start the pathlines from a specific time
point instead of the initial one?

Thanks,
Evan Kao
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