[vtkusers] VTK formats and Fortran (again...)

[Renato N. Elias]

Hi people,

I'm now revisiting an issue that is frequently asked here regarding VTK
files and Fortran codes.

I know that VTK has an interface to help Fortran users to write VTK files
with their codes using VTK library but I've never seen anyone reporting a
successful use of such interface, so: 

-- Is there any skilled Fortran programmer that has already used this
interface (vtkXMLWriterF.h)?! If so, please, post a tutorial in some wiki
page or even here. It would be really useful...

Another question:

-- Is Base64 the unique binary format supported in VTK/XML files?

----------------

I confess that I already made a bunch of tries without any success. Some of
these tries employed other approaches, things like:

-- Writing TCL/VTK scripts to convert Ensight to VTK files (not good since
it's really hard to access transient datasets with VTK from Ensight files);

-- Writing PV/script to open Ensight files and write the corresponding PV
file. It worked, but, the script is toooooooooo slow when converting a large
number of modest files.

-- Looking for Base64 Fortran encoders for writing VTK/XML binaries files
directly from Fortran programs (for me, it would be the best approach and I
should say that I got very close to get success...)

-- Looking for a simple C implementation of Base64 encoding that could be
called from a Fortran code. I'm still trying it with the library found here
(http://synesis.com.au/software/b64.html) any progress will be reported
later...

-- Looking for other formats "well supported" by PV in parallel + transient
datasets. My conclusion was: It should be HDF5 format or Exodus (correct me
if I'm wrong here). I tried to download and read some short tutorials
regarding these formats but unfortunately I have not had enough time to get
through the complete manuals (lack of time is the problem of the universe...
;o)

My dream would be something like a *single* routine or a *single library
file* coded in Fortran or even coded in C in an easy way (like Metis library
is) that could be used to write VTK (parallel and transient datasets in
binary format) from a Fortran program. The idea of compiling an entire VTK
library in each different system available on a computing lab just to use a
couple of routines from vtkIO library is not appealing.


I'll keep trying and any progress will be reported here.


Renato N. Elias
===============================================
DSc student - http://www.nacad.ufrj.br/~rnelias 
High Performance Computing Center - NACAD 
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro 
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil