***data_source

Description

This procedure is used to set the source of data for post processing. The selection should come before any other ***-level commands.

Syntax

***data_source type \(~\,\) [ **open file ] \(~\,\) … \(~\,\) possible mesher commands

The following data source types are currently available.

Data source	Description
Z7	standard Zebulon results
d3plot	LS-DYNA binary format
fin	ABAQUS .fin ASCII file format
odb	ABAQUS .odb database format (for launching use Zodb script instead of Zrun)}
ideas	I-DEAS format
neu	FEMAP neutral format
rst	ANSYS .rst file (Linux or win64)
sim	Z-set simulator format
t16	MARC t16 results format
fg3	FORGE results format
in3	REM3D results format
med	MED results format
ascii	ASCII file input

When using the ***data_source option one gets the chance to add additional meshing operations before the post processing begins. A particularly useful application of this is to add node or element sets which can then be used to specify the location for post processing.

Note

For ABAQUS FIL formats we recommend using the POSITION=AVERAGED AT NODES *EL FILE option. Please note that the ODB format is much more robust and the preferred method. The ODB format is completely implemented for all node/element node/integration point data formats.

Note

When using the ***data_source option the post processing will generally pass silently if a requested field variable is available in the results database, but not with the specified location (e.g. element nodes ctele, integration points integ, etc). In those cases the data used will most likely be null (in some instances an automatic interpolation or extrapolation is used).

Note

For FORGE and REM3D formats an alternative method to translate results into Z-set format is to use ****forge utility, as described on results management.

Examples

A typical example follows. For import examples there are numerous .pst files in the Z-mat test directory and the Zansys directory. Also for Zebulon, Z-sim, and ASCII data sources look in the Post_test directory.

****post_processing
  ***data_source Z7
    **open plast3_util
  ***precision 6
  ***global_post_processing
   **file node
   **output_number 1-999
   **nset ALL_NODE
   **process curve plast3_util.test
    *precision   3
    *node look   U2
    *nset press  RU2
    *node look   eto22 sig22 epcum
****return

Output from Z-sim or even files can be used for post processing (even with 1D data). An example of of loading the binary results from the simulator follows:

****post_processing
  ***data_source simulator
    **dimension 2          % sets the pb dimension
    **file_name sim_pb     % data discribed in sim_pb.uti
  ***local_post_processing
    **file integ           % sim data is always integ
    **elset ALL_ELEMENT    % always need a location
    **process format
      *file sig.txt
      *list_var sig11 sig22 sig33 sig12
****return

An example load from ascii file follows:

****post_processing
  ***data_source ascii
    **dimension 2
    **file_name result.dat
  ***local_post_processing
    **file integ
    **elset ALL_ELEMENT
    **process format
      *file sig.txt
      *list_var sig11 sig22 sig33 sig12
****return

In this case, the post-processor expects result.dat to be an ascii file in column order containing a first line which describes the contents of all columns. This file could contain, for instance:

# time sig11 sig22 sig33 sig12
0. 0. 0. 0. 0.
10. 0. 112. 0. 0.

There are several validation examples in $Z7PATH/TESTS/Post_test/INP/ for ascii and simulation data sourcing. Abaqus fil and odb formats are used int the .pst files under the Z-mat directories.