Salinas August 2009

Introduction

This tutorial will describe the following:

• How to start ParaView and find information and help about ParaView
• Animate modes.
• Animate time data.
• Plot data, including variable data vs time and plot over line.
• Odds and Ends.

How to start ParaView

• Documentation
  • The ParaView web site is located at http://www.paraview.org.
  • ParaView can be found at http://www.paraview.org/paraview/resources/software.html. This includes versions for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.
  • The ParaView wiki is located here: http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView.
  • The ParaView training documents that are maintained by Sandia National Laboratories are located here: http://paraview.org/Wiki/SNL_ParaView_3_Tutorials

• Start ParaView.
  • On Linux and Mac, go into the ParaView directory (that you downloaded to above) and type “paraview”.
  • On Windows XP, go to Start → All Programs → ParaView 3.x.x → and click ParaView

• Open OsShip-eig.exo.
  • In ParaView, File → Open. Go to OsShip-eng.exo, and select it. Click OK.
  • Under the Properties tab of the Object Inspector, select all Variables
  • Click Apply.

• • Rotate the ship with the left mouse button, Scale the ship with the right mouse button.

Animate modes

• Mode Shape controls
  • Under the Properties tab is a section called Mode Shapes.
  • Check "Has Mode Shapes". Apply.
  • Note that you have to select the Apply button whenever it has turned green. Whenever you turn on Mode Shapes, or change Mode, you will have to select the Apply button.
  • Also notice that ParaView Mode Shapes are 0 based. Thus, take any Mode that you want to see and subtract 1. (I hope that this will change to be 1 based in the near future.)
  • Animate. Try setting Mode to 2, then 3, then 4, and animate. (Don't forget that ParaView input is 0 based!)

• Spreadsheet
  • Select the Split vertical icon (located in the upper right corner of the 3d viewport).
  • Spreadsheet view.
  • Make sure the eyeball is turned on.
  • Change Attribute to Field Data.

• Show pressure on sub-eig.exo sideset.
  • Close the Spreadsheet view.
  • Edit/ Delete All.
  • Open sub-eig.exo. Turn on all variables, Apply.

• • Open sub-eig.exo again. Turn all variables on. Turn all blocks off, turn all sidesets On. Apply.
  • Choose the first dataset. Change Surface to Wireframe. Next, change the Wireframe to Points. On the Display tab, change Point Size to 1.
  • Choose the second dataset.
  • Filters/ Common/ Glyph filter. Apply.
  • The Scale Factor is too small. Click Edit, and change the Scale Factor to 0.5. Apply.
  • Reset Icon (below and right of the counterclockwise red arrow)
  • Animate.

Animate Time

• • Edit/ Delete All.
  • Open sub-trans.exo. Turn on all variables, Apply.
  • Change Solid Color to disp
  • Sources/ Annotate Time.
  • Animate.
  • You should see no change. There are two reasons:
    • The displacement is too small. Go back to time step 0. On the Properties tab, change Apply Displacements to 50 magnitude. Animate.
    • The displacement min and max are not set correctly. The quickest way to fix this is to the last time step, and hit the Rescale to Data Range icon (below the View menu). Next, hit the Color Legend icon. Now, go back to time step 0, and animate.
  • Try coloring by aForce. Notice that time step 0 has the correct data, NOT the last time step.

• Save screenshot and save movie
  • File/ Save Screenshot
  • File/ Save Animation

Plot Variables Over Time

• Line plots
  • Filters/ Data Analysis/ Plot over Line. Apply.
  • Display tab. Only plot Disp (Mag).
  • Properties/ Left Axis/ Layout. Specify the Axis Range.

• Node plots
  • Delete Plot over Line.
  • Change Surface to Surface with Edges.
  • Select Points On. Zoom way in (There is a bug in ParaView, and you may select too many points.)
  • Filters/ Data Analysis/ Plot Selection over Time. Apply.
  • Display tab. Only plot Disp (Mag).

• Spreadsheet view once again.
  • Split vertical.
  • Spreadsheet View.
  • On the Display tab, select Show only selected elements.
  • Notice that you can see all of your Cell and Point data.

Odds and ends

• Select a specific globalElementId
  • Select Cells On, then select a cell.
  • View/ Selection Inspector.
  • Cell Label/ Visible. Label Mode: GlobalElementId. Point Label/ Visible. Label Mode: GlobalNodeIds.
  • Selection Type/ Global Ids. Leave Field Type as Cell.
  • Highlight the global IDs number in the input box, and type 100.
  • Cell Label/ Not Visible. Point Label/ Not Visible.

• Extract Selection
  • Reset
  • Select Cells Through. Select the middle of the tube.
  • Filters/ Data Analysis/ Extract Selection.

• Arrows that point TO a surface - Advanced Topic
  • There is a feature hole in ParaView that has a feature request pending. The glyph filter always has arrows pointing from a surface, not towards a surface. Here is a way to create arrows that point to a surface (for instance, pressure on the surface of an underwater pipe):
  • Bring in your data that has pressure vectors, such as Force.
  • Sources/ Arrow. Apply.
  • Filters/ Alphabetical/ Transform. Translate X == -1. Apply.
  • Select your data in the Pipeline Browser once again.
  • Filter/ Glyph With Custom Source.
  • Click the button left to the word Source. In the left window, select Transform. OK.
  • Select your Vector input, and hit Apply.

• Questions?