Z-set Paraview visualization interface

The Z-set Paraview plugin is developed in view to take advantage of the rich and diverse visualization capabilities of VTK based Paraview tool. This plugin involves adding additional filters, to address general and specific needs of Z-set users. This required development of new Qt interfaces.

Z-FILTERS

The Z-set related filters are grouped into a QToolBar widget. This toolbar grants access to the multitude of filters, which are inturn combination of both new and existing Paraview filters.

Fig. 17 Z-FILTERS QToolBar widget

Browse and open files

Fig. 18 Browse and open files (QFileDialog::getOpenFileName)

The browse functionality uses the QFileDialog::getOpenFileName, with filters applied based on the file types handled by the plugin. With the plugin one can load various formats of results like , , etc. In the figure we see all the formats currently supported.

Fig. 19 Various solver formats supported by the plugin

Mesh info

Fig. 20 Mesh information filter

The mesh information functionality is derived from the vtkTableAlgorithm. The vtkobject from the pipeline tree on which this filter is applied is parsed to extract various information. The parsed information is then populated in a well formatted way in the RenderView. The filter retains the name of the parent vtkObject, with an additional suffix “-INFO”.

Fig. 21 Well formatted text presented in the RenderView

Search nodes and elements

Fig. 22 Search mesh entities likes nodes and elements using their ID

This filter is used for one of the most commonly required task, i.e. search for a node or element with its id. For this filter a QDockWidget (ZSearch) is developed. This dock is filled with other QWidgets, that interact with the user for getting valid inputs to perform the search action. Hovering the mouse over the respective input fields would display relevant help tool tips (Fig. 23). A new vertically split RenderView is created with the results from the search. The base vtkObject, representation is modified in way to highlight the search results.

For a searched node id, the attached elements (white), along with their node ids (orange) are shown (Fig. 24). For a searched element id, the element along with its attached node ids are shown (Fig. 26).

Fig. 23 ZSearch QDockWidget and tool tips

Fig. 24 Find node with id = 456

Fig. 25 Find node with id = 456, zoomed out view

Fig. 26 Find element with id = 24504

Fig. 27 Find element with id = 24504, zoomed out view

Nsets, Bsets and Elsets

Fig. 28 Visualize Nsets, Bsets, Elsets

This filter is used to visualize various groups/sets of the mesh. For this filter a QDockWidget is developed. The dock is filled with various QWidgets like, QCheckBox, QLineEdit and many others, that facilitate a intuitive GUI experience to visualize the mesh sets. Fig. 29 shows Qt sets interface with various QWidgets.

Against each set name in the QListView, the count of the contents of the set is given. Upon double click on the entries of the QListView a new vertically split RenderView is created with the sets selected. The base vtkObject, representation is modified in a way to highlight the set selected (eg. Nset visualization Fig. 30). The QCheckBox “Show normals”, if checked will show the normal vectors to the surface (Fig. 31). Multiple sets can be selected using the Ctrl key. Once all the sets are selected the button "Extract set(s)", can be clicked to visualize multiple sets (eg. multiple Elsets visualization Fig. 32).

Fig. 29 SETS QDockWidget, with other QWidgets

Fig. 30 Nset visualization

Fig. 31 Bset visualization along with normals

Fig. 32 Multiple Elsets visualization

Search by name

The SETS interface also has a very useful search feature. The user can search a set based on name. This can be entered in the “Search text” QLineEdit field of the interface (Fig. 29). Set names matching will be marked red and moved up in the QListView widget.

Fig. 33 Search feature to find sets by names

Element types

The plugin creates additional Elsets based on the element types of the loaded mesh. These Elsets can then be visualized like other regular sets. This feature can be of special interest in Zcracks applications, where the remeshing could involve in generating multiple element types. And being able to visualize them could be interesting.

Fig. 34 Elsets based on element types

Boundary Conditions (Z-set inp)

Fig. 35 Visualize the boundary conditions of the Z-set results

This filter is used to visualize the boundary conditions of the Z-set results (ut file). For this filter QDockWidget “ZBC” is developed. Among various QWidgets that fill the dock, a QComboBox is populated with boundary conditions obtained from parsing the Z-set inp file (Fig. 36). In the figure , we show how the parsed inp file boundary conditions can be visualized, by double clicking them.

Fig. 36 The boundary conditions QDockWidget

Fig. 37 The boundary conditions visualized